Midnight Kiss
by interest.01
Summary: His lips rubbed across hers as if they were young wooers,too simple to know the ways of the wicked."I won't take your virginity,because that is yours to give and not mine to take.But Sakura,I warn you now that I intend to take everything else."
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:**

Miss Sakura Haruno doesn't believe in fairy tales . . . or happily ever after. Forced by her stepmother to attend a ball, Sakura meets a prince . . . and decides he's anything but charming. A clash of wits and wills ensues, but they both know their irresistible attraction will lead nowhere. For Sasuke is promised to another woman—a princess whose hand in marriage will fulfill his ruthless ambitions. Sasuke _likes_ his fiancée, which is a welcome turn of events, but he doesn't _love_ her. Obviously, he should be _wooing_ his bride-to-be, not the witty, impoverished beauty who refuses to fawn over him. Godmothers and glass slippers notwithstanding, this is one fairy tale in which destiny conspires to destroy any chance that Sakura and Sasuke might have at happily ever after.

(A/N:) I got this off of a novel I was reading and decided to make it into a Sakura/Sasuke story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Kudos! The setting takes place where Kings and Queens still rules their country, where Prince's are still being crowned, and princesses are called forth to balls.

* * *

Once upon a time, not so very long ago…

This story begins with a carriage that was never a pumpkin, though it fled at midnight; a godmother who lost track of her charge, though she had no magic wand; and several so-called rats who secretly would have enjoyed wearing livery.

And, of course, there's a girl too, though she didn't know how to dance, nor did she want to marry a prince.

But it really begins with the rats.

They were out of control; everybody said so. Mrs. Ayumi, the housekeeper, fretted about it regulary. "I can't abide the way those little varmints chew up a pair of shoes when a body's not looking," she told the butler, a comfortable soul by the name of Mr. Yamato.

"I know just what you're saying," he told her with an edge in his voice that she didn't hear often. "I can't abide them. Those sharp noses, and the yapping at night, and –"

"The way they eat!" Mrs. Ayumi broke in. "From the table, from the very plates!"

"It _is_ from the plates," Yamato told her. "I've seen it with my own eyes, Mrs. Ayumi, that I have! By the hand of Mrs. Haruno herself!"

Mrs. Ayumi's little shriek might have been heard all the way in the drawing room…except the rats were making such a racket that no one in that chamber could hear anything.

* * *

_Haruno House_

_The residence of Mrs. Masako Haruno; her daughter, Hinata; and Miss Sakura Haruno_

Miss Sakura Haruno got down from her horse seething with rage.

It should be said that the conditions wasn't unfamiliar with her. Before her father died seven years earlier, she found herself sometimes irritated with her new stepmother. But it wasn't until he was gone, and the new Mrs. Haruno—who had held that title for a matter of mere months—started ruling the roost, that Sakura really learned the meaning of anger.

Anger was watching tenants on the estate be forced to pay double the rent or leave cottages where they'd lived their whole lives. Anger was watching the crops wilt and the hedges overgrow because her stepmother begrudged the money needed to maintain the estate. Anger was watching her father's money be poured into new gowns and bonnets and frilly things…so numerous that her stepmother and stepsister couldn't find days enough in the year to wear them all.

It was the pitying glances she had from acquaintances who never met her at dinner anymore. It was being demoted to a chamber in the attic, with faded furnishings that advertised her relative worth in the household. It was the self-loathing of someone who can't quite bring herself to leave home and have done with it. It was fueled by humiliation, and despair, and the absolute certainty that her father must be turning in his grave.

She stomped up the front steps restraining her loins for battle, as her father himself would have said. "Hello, Yamato," she said, as their dear old butler opened the door. "Are you playing footman now?"

"Herself sent the footmen off to Konoha to fetch a medic," Yamato said. "To be exact, two medics."

"Having a spell, is she?" Sakura pulled her gloves off carefully, since the leather was separating from its lining around the wrist. Time was when she might have actually wondered if her stepmother (known to the household as Herself) was malingering, but no longer. Not after years of false alarms and voices screaming in the middle of the night about attacks…which generally turned out to be indigestion.

Though as Yamato had once commented, one can only hope.

"Not Herself, this time. It's Miss Hinata's face, I gather."

"The bite?"

He nodded. "Dragging the lip down, so her maid told us this morning. There's a swelling there as well."

Sour as she felt, Sakura felt a pulse of sympathy. Poor Hinata didn't have much going for her outside her pretty face and prettier frocks; it would break her stepsister's heart if she were permanently disfigured.

"I have to talk to Herself about the vicar's wife," she said, handing her pelisse to Yamato. "Or rather, the former vicar's wife. After his death, I moved the family to the far cottage."

"Bad business," the butler said. "Especially in a vicar. Seems that a vicar shouldn't take his own life."

"Mind you, it's not easy for a man to get over the loss of a limb."

"Well, now his children have to get over the loss of him." She said unsympathetically. "Not to mention that my stepmother sent an eviction notice to his widow yesterday."

Yamato frowned. "Herself says you're to dine with them tonight."

Sakura stopped on her way up the stairs. "She said what?"

"You're to dine with them tonight. And Lord Inuzuka is coming."

"You must be joking."

But the butler was shaking his head. "She said that. What's more, she's decided that Miss Hinata's rats have to go, but for some reason she banished them to your chamber."

Sakura closed her eyes for a moment. A day that had started out badly was only getting worse. She disliked her stepsister's pack of little dogs, affectionately, or not affectionately, known to all as the rats. She also disliked Kiba Inuzuka, Lord Inuzuka, her stepsister's betrothed. He smiled too easily. And she loathed even more the idea of sitting down to dinner _en famille_.

She generally managed to forget that she had once been mistress of the household. After all, her mother had been bedridden for years before she died, and sickly most of Sakura's life. Sakura had grown up sitting opposite her father at the dining room table, going over the menus with Mrs. Ayumi, the housekeeper…She had expected to debut, and marry, and raise children of her own in the very house.

But that was before her father died, and she turned into a maid-of-all-work, living the garret.

And now she was to come to dinner, in a gown that was out-of-date, and endure the smirking pleasantries of Lord Inuzuka? Why?

She ran up the stairs with a sickening foreboding in her stomach. Sakura's stepmother was seated at her dressing table, examining her complexion. The afternoon light fell over her shoulder, lighting her hair. It had a glare to it, that hair, a fierce dark tint as if the strands were made of minerals. She was wearing a morning dress with a pleated bodice of lilac net, caught under the breasts with a trailing ribbon. It was lovely…for someone young who was about to go into society.

But Masako could not abide the fact that she was no longer in her thirties. In fact, she had never really accepted the loss of her twenties. And so she dressed herself to create an approximation of Masako-at-Twenty. One thing you had to say for Sakura's stepmother: She had a reckless bravery, a kind of fierce disregard for the conventions governing women's aging.

But of course if Masako's costumes were the outward expression of her ambition, they were also the refuge of failed. For no woman yet has appeared twenty in her forties, and a deliciously sensual gown cannot restore youth.

"I gather you finished your trips amongst your friends and bothered to come home," Masako said acidly.

Sakura took one look around her stepmother's bedchamber and decided to remove a heap of clothes from what she was almost certain was a stool. The room was mounded with piles of light cottons and spangled silks; they were thrown in heaps over the chairs. Or at least where one presumed chairs to be. The room resembled a pastel snowscape, with soft mountains of fabric here and there.

"What are you doing?" her stepmother demanded as Sakura hoisted the gowns in her arms.

"Sitting down," Sakura said, dropping the clothing on the floor.

Her stepmother bounded up with a screech. "Don't treat my gowns like that, you stupid girl! The top few were delivered only a day or two ago, and they're magnificent. I'll have you ironing them all night if there's the least wrinkle, even the least."

"I don't iron, " Sakura said flatly. "Remember? I put a scorch mark on a white gown three years ago."

"Ah, the Persian belladine!" her stepmother cried, clasping her hands together like a girlish Lady Macbeth. "I keep it…there." She pointed a long finger to a corner where a towering mound of cloth went halfway to the ceiling. "I shall have it altered one of these days." She sat back down.

Sakura carefully pushed the stack of gowns a little farther away from her foot. "I must speak to you about the Yamagachees."

"My, I hope you managed to shovel the woman out the door," Masako said, lighting a cigarillo. "You know the bloody solicitor is coming next week to assess my management of the estate. If he sees that scrap heap of a cottage, he'll make no end fuss. Last quarter he prosed on and on till I thought I'd die of boredom."

"It's your responsibility to keep the cottages in good repair," Sakura said, getting up to open a window.

Masako waved her cigarillo disdainfully. "Nonsense. Those people live on my land for practically nothing. The least they can do is keep their own houses in good nick. The Yamagachee woman is living in a pigsty. I happened by the other day and I was positively horrified."

Sakura sat back down and let her eyes wander around the room. The _pigsty_ of a room. But after a moment she realized that Masako hadn't noticed her silent insult, since she had opened a little jar and was painting her lips a dark shade of copper.

"Since her husband died," Sakura said, "Mrs. Yamagachee is both exhausted and afraid. The house is not a pigsty; it is simply disorganized. You can't evict her. She has nowhere to go."

"Nonsense," Masako said, leaning closer to the glass to examine her lips. "I'm sure she has a bolt-hole all planned. Another man, most like. It's been over a year since Yamagachee topped himself; she'll have a new one lined up by now. You'll see."

Talking to her stepmother, in Sakura's mind, was like peeing in a coal-black outhouse. You have no idea what might come up, but you knew you wouldn't like it.

"That is cruel," she said, trying to pitch her words so that she sounded like the voice of authority.

"They have to go," Masako stated. "I can't abide sluggards. I made a special trip over the house, you know, the morning after her husband jumped from the bridge. Bringing my condolences."

Masako preferred to avoid all the people working on the estate or in the village, except on the rare occasions when she developed a sudden taste for playing the lady of the manor. Then she would put on an ensemble extravagantly calculated to offend country folk, descend from her carriage, and decipher in her tenants' startles expressions their shiftless and foolish natures. Finally she would instruct Sakura to discard them from their homes.

Luckily she generally forget about the demand after a week or so.

"That woman, Yamagachee, was lying on the sofa crying. Children all over the room, a disgusting number of children, and there she was, shoulder shaking like a bad actress. Crying. Maybe she should join a traveling theater," Masako said. "She's not unattractive."

"She—"

Masako interrupted. "I can't abide idlers. Do you think I lay around and wept after my first husband, the colonial, died? Did you see me shed a tear when your father died, though we had enjoyed but a few month of matrimonial bliss?"

Sakura had seen no tears, but Masako needed no confirmation from her.

"Although Mrs. Yamagachee may not have your fortitude, she has four small children and we have some responsibility to them—"

"I'm bored with the subject and besides, I need to speak to you about something important. Tonight Lord Inuzuka is coming to dinner and you shall join us." Masako blew out a puff of smoke. It looked like fog escaping from a small copper pipe.

"So Yamato said. Why?" She and her stepmother had long ago dispensed with pleasantries. They loathed each other, and Sakura couldn't imagine why her presence was required at the table.

"You're going to be meeting Inuzuka's relative in a few days." Masako took another pull on her cigarillo. "Thank Goodness you're slimmer than Hinata. We can have her gowns taken in quite easily. It would be harder to go the other way."

"What are you talking about? I can't imagine that Lord Inuzuka has the faintest interest in eating a meal with me, nor in introducing me to his relatives, and the feeling is mutual."

Before Masako could clarify her demand, the door flung open. "The cream isn't working," Hinata wailed, hurtling toward her mother. She didn't even see Sakura, just fell to her knees and buried her face in her mother's lap.

Instantly Masako put down her cigarillo and wrapped her arms around her daughter's shoulders. "Hush, babykins," she crooned. "Of course the cream will work. We just need to give it a little time. I promise you, Mother promises you, that it will work. Your face will be as beautiful as ever. And just in case, I sent off to Konoha for two of the very best medics."

Sakura was beginning to feel a faint interest in the matter. "What kind of cream are you using?"

Masako threw her an unfriendly glance. "Nothing you would have heard of. It's made from crushed pearls, among other things. It works like a charm on all sorts of facial imperfections. I use it myself, daily."

"Just look at my lip, Sakura!" Hinata said, popping her head back up. "I'm ruined for life. " Her eyes glistened with tears.

Her lower lip did look rather alarming. There was an odd violet colored puffiness around the side that suggested infection, and her mouth had a slight, but distinct, list to the side.

Sakura got to her feet and came over for a closer look. "Has Dr. Shizune seen it yet?"

"She came yesterday, but she's an old fool," Masako said. "She couldn't be expected to understand how important this is. She hadn't a single helpful potion or cream to offer. Nothing!"

Sakura turned Hinata's head to the side so that the light fell on it. "I think the bite is infected," she said. "Are you sure this cream is hygienic?"

"Are you questioning my judgment?" Masako shouted, standing up.

"Absolutely," Sakura retorted. "If Hinata ends up with a deformed mouth because you sloshed on some quack remedy you were swindle into buying in Konoha, I want it clear that it's your fault."

"You insolent toad!" Masako said, stepping forward.

But Hinata put out an arm. "Mother, Stop. Sakura, do you think there's something wrong with the cream? My lip throbs terribly." Hinata was a tremendously pretty girl, with a beautiful complexion and wide, tender eyes that always looked a bit dewy, as if she had just shed a sentimental tear, or was just about to. Since she shed tears, sentimental and otherwise, throughout the day, this made sense. Now two tears rolled down her face.

"I think that there might be some infection inside the wound," Sakura said, frowning. "Your lip mended quickly, but…" She pushed gently and Hinata cried out. "It's going to have to be cut."

"Never!" Masako roared.

"I couldn't allow my face to be cut," Hinata said, trembling all over.

"But you don't want to have a disfigurement," Sakura said, schooling her tone to patience.

Hinata blinked while she thought about that.

"Nothing will happen until the Konoha medics arrive," Masako announced, sitting back down. She had a wild enthusiasm for anyone, and anything, from Konoha. Sakura suspected it was the result of a childhood spent in the Mist, but since Masako never let slip even a hint about her past, it was hard to know.

"Well, let's hope they arrive soon," Sakura said, wondering whether an infected lip created any risk of blood infection. Presumably not… "Why do you want me to join you for dinner, Masako?"

"Because of my lip, of course," Hinata said, snuffling like a small mouse.

"Your lip," Sakura repeated.

"I can't go on the visit, can I?" Hinata added, with a characteristic, if maddening, lack of clarity.

"Your sister was to pay a very important visit to a member of Lord Inuzuka's family in just a few days," Masako put in. "If you weren't so busy traipsing around the estate listening to the sob stories of feckless women, you'd remember that. He's a _prince_. A prince!"

Sakura dropped onto her stool again and looked at her two relatives. Masako was as hard and bright as a new ha' penny. In contrast, Hinata's features were blurred and indistinct. Her hair was a delightful dark violet color, somewhere between indigo and blue, and curled winsomely around her face. Masako's house had the sharp-edge perfection of someone whose maid spent three hours with a curling iron achieving precisely the look she wanted.

"I failed to see what the postponed visit has to do with me," Sakura said, "though I am very sympathetic about your disappointment, Hinata." And she was, too. Though she loathed her stepmother, she had never felt the same hatred for her stepsister. For one thing, Hinata was too soft-natured for anyone to dislike. And for another, Sakura couldn't help being fond of her. If Sakura had taken a great deal of abuse from Masako, the kind affection that her stepmother lavished on her daughter was, in Sakura's mind, almost worse.

"Well," Hinata said heavily, sitting down on a pile of gowns about the approximate height of a stool, "you have to be me. It took me a while to understand it, but Mother has it all cleverly planned out. And I'm sure my darling Kibii will agree."

"I couldn't possibly be you, whatever that means," Sakura said flatly.

"Yes, you can," Masako said. She had finished her cigarillo and was lighting a second from the first. "And you will," she added.

"No, I won't. Not that I have the faintest idea what you're talking about. Be Hinata in what context? And with whom?"

"With Lord Inuzuka's prince, of course," Masako said, regarding her through a faint haze of smoke. "Haven't you been listening?"

"You want me to pretend to be Hinata? In front of a prince? Which prince?"

"I didn't understand at first either," Hinata said, running her finger over her injured lip. "you see, before Kibii can marry me, we need the approval of some distant relative of his."

"The prince," Masako put in.

"He's a prince from some little country in the back of beyond, that's what Kibbi says. But he's the only representative of Kibii's mother's family who lives in Suna, and she won't release his inheritance without the prince's approval. His father's will," Hinata confided, "is most dreadfully unfair. If Kibii marries before thirty years of age, without his mother's approval, he loses part of his inheritance—and he's not even twenty yet!"

Very smart of Papa Inuzuka, in Sakura's mind. From what she'd seen, Inuzuka Junior was about as ready to manage an estate as the rats were to learn choral music. Not that it was her business. "The medics will take a look at you tomorrow morning," she told Hinata, "and then you'll be off to see the prince. Rather like cat looking at the queen."

"She can't go like _that_!" Masako snapped. It was the first time that Sakura had ever heard that edge of disgust applied to her daughter.

Hinata turned her head and looked at her mother, but she said nothing.

"Of course she can," Sakura stated. "This sounds like a fool's game to me. No one will believe for a moment that I'm Hinata. And even if they did, don't you think they'd remember later? What happened when this prince stands up in the church and stops the ceremony, on the grounds that the bride isn't the bride he met?"

"That won't happen, if only because Hinata will be married directly afterwards, by parish license," Masako said. "This is the first time that Lord Inuzuka has been invited to the castle, and we can't miss it. His Highness is throwing a ball to celebrate his betrothal, and you're going as Hinata."

"Why not just postpone your visit and go after the ball is over?"

"Because I have to get married," Hinata piped up.

Sakura's heart sank. "You _have_ to get married?"

Hinata nodded. Sakura looked at her stepmother, who shrugged.

"She's compromised. Three months' worth."

"For goodness sake," Sakura exclaimed. "You hardly know Kiba, Hinata!"

"I love Kibii," Hinata said, her big eyes earnest. "I didn't even want to debut, not after I saw him at Konge Abbey that Sunday back in March, but Mother made me."

"March," Sakura said. "You met him in March and now it's June. Tell me that darling Kibii proposed, oh, say three months ago, just after you fell in love, and you've kept it a secret?"

Hinata giggled at that. "You know exactly when he proposed, Sakura! I told you first, after Mother. It was just two weeks ago."

The lines between Masako's nose and mouth couldn't be plumped by a miracle cream made of crushed pearls. "Lord Inuzuka was slightly tardy in his attentions."

"Not tardy in his _attentions_," Sakura said. "He's seems to have been remarkably forward in that department."

Masako threw her a look of disdain. "Lord Inuzuka very properly proposed marriage once he understood the situation."

"I would have killed the man, were I you," Sakura told her.

"Would you?" She gave an odd smile. "You always were a fool. The viscount has a title and a snug fortune, once he gets his hands on it. He's utterly infatuated with your sister, and he's set on marrying her."

"Fortunate," Sakura commented. She looked back at Hinata. She was delicately patting her lip over and over again. "I told you to hire a chaperone, Masako. She could have anyone."

Masako turned back to her glass without a comment. In truth, Hinata probably wasn't for just any man. She was too soft, too much like a soggy pudding. She cried too much.

Though she was terribly pretty and, apparently, fertile. Fertility was always a good thing in a woman. Look how much her own father has despaired over his lack of son. Her mother's inability to have more children apparently led to his marriage a mere fortnight after his wife's death…he must have been _that_ anxious to start a new family.

Presumably he thought Masako was as fertile as her daughter had now proved to be. At any rate, he died without testing the premise.

"So you're asking me to visit the prince and pretend to be Hinata," Sakura said.

"I'm not asking you," Masako said instantly. "I'm commanding you."

"Oh, Mother," Hinata said. "Please, Sakura. Please. I want to marry Kibii. And, really, I rather need to…I didn't quite understand, and well…" she smoothed her gown. "I don't want everyone to know about the baby. And Kibii doesn't either."

Of course Hinata hadn't understood that she was carrying a child. Sakura would be amazed to think that he stepsister had even understood the act of conception, let alone its consequences.

"You're _asking_ me," Sakura said to her stepmother, ignoring Hinata for the moment. "Because although you could force me into the carriage with Lord Inuzuka, you certainly couldn't control what I said once I met this prince."

Masako showed her teeth.

"Even more relevant," Sakura continue, "is the fact that Hinata made a very prominent debut just a few months ago. Surely people at the ball will have met her—or even just have seen her?"

"That's why I'm sending you rather than any girl I could find on the street," Masako said with her usual courtesy.

"You'll have my little doggies with you," Hinata said. "They made me famous, so everyone will think you're me." And then, as if she just remembered, another tear rolled down her cheek. "Though Mother says that I must give them up."

"Apparently they are in my bedchamber," Sakura said.

"They're yours now," Masako said. "At least for the visit. After that we'll—" She broke off with a glance at her daughter. "We'll give them to some deserving orphans."

"The poor tots will love them," Hinata said mistily, ignoring the fact that the said orphans might not like being nipped by their new pets.

"Who would accompany me as chaperone?" Sakura asked, putting the question of Hinata's rats aside for the moment.

"You don't need one," Masako said with a hard edge of scorn, "the way you travel about the countryside on your own."

"A pity I didn't keep Hinata with me," Sakura retorted. "I would have ensured that Inuzuka didn't treat her like a common trollop."

"Oh, I suppose that you preserved your virtue," Masako snapped. "Much good may it do you. You needn't worry about Lord Inuzuka making an attempt at that dusty asset; he's in love with Hinata."

"Yes, he is," Hinata said, sniffing. "And I love him too." Another tear slid down her cheek.

Sakura sighed. "If I am pretending to be Hinata, it will create a scandal if I appear in a carriage alone with Lord Inuzuka, and the scandal will not attach to me, but to Hinata. In short, no one will be surprised when her child appears on an abbreviated schedule after the wedding."

There was a moment of silence. "All right," Masako said. "I would have accompanied Hinata, of course, but I can't leave her, given her poor state of health. You can take Riku with you."

"A maid? You're giving me a maid as a chaperone?"

"What's the matter with that?" Masako demanded. "She can sit between you in case you lose your head and lunge at Lord Inuzuka. You'll have the rats' maid as well, of course."

"Hinata's dogs have their _own_ maid?"

"Meka-Downstairs," Hinata said. "She cleans the fireplaces, but she also gives them a bath every day, and brushes them. Pets," Hinata added, "are a responsibility."

"I shall not take Meka with me," Sakura stated. "How on earth do you expect Mrs. Ayumi to manage without her?"

Masako just shrugged.

"This won't work," Sakura said, trying to drag the conversation back into some sort of sensible channel. "We don't even look alike."

"Of course you do!" Masako snapped.

"Well, actually, we don't," Hinata said. "I—well, I look like me and Sakura, well…"She floundered to a halt.

"What Hinata is trying to say is that she is remarkably beautiful," Sakura said, feeling her heart like a little stone in her chest, "and I am not. Put together with the fact that we are stepsisters related only by marriage, and there's no more resemblance between us than any pair of Konohawomen seen together."

Hinata's hair was short with a little wavy at the end, in the very newest style, and fixed with a delicate bandeau. Sakura brushed hers out in the morning, twisted it about, and pinned it flat to her head. She had no time for meticulous grooming. More accurately, she had no time for grooming at all.

"You're cracked," Sakura said, staring at her stepmother. "You can't pass me off as your daughter."

Hinata was frowning now. "I'm afraid she's right, Mother. I wasn't thinking."

Masako had a kind of tight look about her eyes that Sakura knew from long experience signaled true rage. But for once, she was rather perplexed about why.

"Sakura is taller than I am," Hinata said, counting her fingers. "Her hair is pink whereas mine is a dark shade of purple and we don't have the same sort of look at all. Even if she put on my clothing—"

"She's your sister," Masako said, her mouth tight, as if the copper pipe had been hammered flat.

"She's my stepsister," Sakura said patiently. "The fact that you married my father does not make us blood relatives, and your first husband—"

"She's your _sister_."

* * *

So, what do you think so far? You like it? Did it catch your attention yet? :) Please review and comments.


	2. Chapter 2

_Uchiha Castle_

"Your Highness."

The prince in question, whose given name was Sasuke Uchiha, looked up to find his majordomo, Naruto, holding a tray. "I've got this rare vase all in piece, Naruto. Speak quickly."

"Rare vase," Naruto said with distaste. "It sounds like a scandalous item one might buy in Suna. The wrong side of Suna," he added.

"Spare me your quibbles," Sasuke said. "This particular jug was meant for the dead, not the living. It used to hold six small bones for playing knucklebones, and was found in a child's grave."

Naruto bent nearer and peered at the pieces of clay scattered across the desk. "Where are the knucklebones?"

"The knuckleboned Taiya threw them out. In fact, he threw this little jug out too, since the child was poor, and he is only interested in ravaging the tombs of kings. I'm trying to see whether I can identify how the top, which I don't have, was attached. I think there were bronze nails attached to both these pieces." He pointed. "And the nails were mended at least once before the vase was put in the tomb, see?"

Naruto looked at the pieces. "Needs mending again. Why are you bothering?"

"This child's parents had nothing to give him to bring to the underworld but his knucklebones," Sasuke said, picking up his magnifying glass. "Why shouldn't that gift be honored equally with the trumpery gold Taiya is after?"

"A message has arrived from Princess Tenari's delegation," Naruto said, apparently accepting Sasuke's edict in regard to the knucklebones. "She is now the Land of the Wave and will arrive on schedule. We've had some two hundred acceptance for your betrothal ball, among them your nephew, Kiba Inuzuka. In fact, the viscount will arrive before the ball, by the sound of it."

"Bringing the Golden Fleece?" Sasuke's nephew, whom he vaguely remembered as a boy with a fat bottom, had betrothed himself to one of the richest heiresses in Konoha.

"His Lordship will be accompanied by his betrothed, Miss Hinata Haruno," Naruto said, glancing at his notes.

"It's hard to believe that Kiba could have garnered such a prize; perhaps she has freckles or is cross-eyed," Sasuke said, carefully aligning the clay fragments so that he could determine where the nails originated.

Naruto shook his head. "At her debut this spring, Miss Hinata was accounted one of the most beautiful women on the marriage market." They had been in Konoha for a matter of months, but he already had a firm grasp on relevant gossip among the aristocracy. "Her adoration for her betrothed was also universally noted," he added.

"She hasn't met me," Sasuke said idly. "Maybe I should steal her away before my own bride arrives. A Golden Fleece for a Russian one. My Japanese is far better than my Russian."

Naruto didn't say a word, just slowly looked from Sasuke's hair to his feet. Sasuke knew what Naruto was seeing: black hair pulled back from a widow's peak, eyebrows that came to points over his eyes in a way that frightened some women, the shadow of a beard that never seemed to really go away. Something in his expression scared off the soft ones, the ones that thought to cuddle and wrap his hair around their fingers after sex.

"Of course, you could try," Naruto commented. "But I expect you'll have your hands full trying to charm your own bride."

Not his best insult, but pretty good.

"You make it sound as if Tenari will run for the hills at the sight of me." Sasuke knew damn well that the glimmer of ferocity in his eyes frightened ladies who were more used to lapdogs. But for all that, he had yet to meet the woman whose eyes didn't show a slight widening, a sparkle of happiness, at the prospect of meeting a prince. They liked to have a prince under their belt.

Still, this was the first time he would be trying to charm a wife, rather than a lover. One had to assume that women took the business more seriously than they did the occasional bedding.

A curse sounded in his head but died before reaching his lips. He turned back to the little pot before him. "Perhaps fortunately, my betrothed has no more choice in the matter than I do."

Naruto bowed. He left as silently as he had arrived.

_Haruno House_

There was a moment of cool silence in the room, like the silence that follows a gunshot when hunters are in the woods.

Hinata didn't say anything. Sakura took one look at her soft, bewildered eyes and saw that her mother's pronouncement had flown over her head.

"Hinata is my sister," Sakura repeated.

"Yes, so you bloody well better go there and make sure her marriage goes through before she's ruined. Because she's your sister."

A little pulse of relief rushed through Sakura's veins. She must have misunderstood, she had—

"She's your half sister," Masako clarified, her voice grating.

"But—she's—" Sakura turned to Hinata. "How old are you?"

"You know how old I am," Hinata said, snuffling a bit as she rubbed her lower lip. "I'm almost exactly five years younger than you."

"You're eighteen," Sakura said. Her heart was thumping in her chest.

"Which makes you a ripe twenty-three," Masako said pleasantly. "Or perhaps twenty-four. At your age, it's easy to forget."

"Your husband, the colonel—"

Masako shrugged.

Sakura found herself struggling to breathe. She felt as if her whole life were unfolding in front of her, all the questions she never knew she had. The shock of her father coming home, just two weeks after her mother's funeral, and saying that he was planning to marry by special license.

Her mother lying in bed all those years, and her father popping his head in now and then to say cheerful things and toss kisses in her direction but never to sit by his wife's side.

Because apparently he'd been sneaking off to sit with Masako.

"I feel as if I'm missing something," Hinata said, looking from one to the other. "Are you going to cry, Sakura?"

Sakura recoiled. She had never cried, not since her father's funeral. "Of course not!" she snapped.

There was another beat of silence in the room.

"Why don't you do the honors?" Sakura said finally, looking at her stepmother. "I'm agog to learn the particulars."

"The particulars are none of your business," Masako stated. Then she turned to Hinata. "Listen, darling, you remember how we used to see dearest Hino even before we came to live in this house?"

_Hino_! Sakura had never thought for a moment that her father's name had any connection to that of her stepsister.

"Yes," Hinata agreed. "We did."

"That would be because your mother was his mistress," Sakura said. "I gather he visited your house for at least eleven years, before my mother died. Was there a colonel at all? Is Hinata illegitimate?" she asked Masako.

"It hardly matters," Masako said coolly. "I can provide for her."

Sakura knew that. Her beloved, foolish father had left everything to his wife . . . and Masako had turned it into a sweet dowry for Hinata, and be damned whether the estate needed the income. It was all Hinata's now.

Who was not only pregnant, but illegitimate. One had to suppose that the colonel, Masako's supposed first husband, had never existed.

Masako got up and stubbed out her cigar in a dish overflowing with half-smoked butts. "I am shocked beyond belief that the two of you haven't sprung to your feet and hugged each other in an excess of girlish enthusiasm. But since you haven't, I'll make this short. You will go to Uchiha Castle, Sakura, because your sister is carrying a child and needs the approval of the prince. You will dress as your sister, you will take the bloody hounds with you, and you will make this work."

Masako looked tough, and more tired than she usually did. "In that case, you will keep the Yamagachee's in their cottage," Sakura stated.

Her stepmother shrugged. She didn't really give a damn either way, Sakura realized. She had launched the Yamagachee into the situation just in case the plea of blood relations failed.

"I've summoned the same man who cut Hinata's hair," Masako said briskly. "He'll be here tomorrow morning to cut off all of that rot on your head. Three seamstresses are coming as well. You'll need at least twenty gowns altered."

"You'll be at the castle for three or four days," Hinata said.

She got to her feet, and for the first time, Sakura recognized that her sister was indeed going to have a child. There was something slightly clumsy about the way she moved.

"I'm sorry," Hinata said, walking over to stand before Sakura.

"There's nothing for you to be sorry for!" Masako interjected.

"Yes, there is," she insisted. "I'm sorry that our father was the sort of man he was. I'm not sorry that he married my mother, but I'm—I'm just sorry about all of it. About what you must think of him now."

Sakura didn't want to think about her father. She had tried not to think of him in the last seven years, since his death. It was too painful to think about the way he laughed, and the way he would stand by the fireplace and tell her amusing stories about the Land of Waves, reflected firelight glinting from his wineglass.

And now there was a whole new reason to not think of him.

She returned Hinata's embrace politely, then disengaged herself and turned to Masako. "Why must I come to dinner tonight?"

"Lord Inuzuka has some doubt that you two look enough alike to fool someone who might have met your sister."

"But my hair—"

"It's not the hair," her stepmother said. "We'll put you in a decent gown and you'll see the resemblance soon enough. Hinata is known for her beauty, her dogs, and her glass slippers. As long as you don't indulge your churlish tongue, you'll pass."

"What on earth is a glass slipper?" Sakura asked.

"Oh, they're marvelous!" Hinata cried, clasping her hands together. "I brought them into fashion myself this season, Sakura, and then everyone started wearing them."

"Your feet are about the same size," Masako said. "They'll fit."

Sakura looked down at her tired, gray gown and then up at her stepmother. "What would you have done if my father had lived? If I had debuted when I was supposed to and people recognized the resemblance between myself and Hinata?"

"I didn't worry about it," Masako said with one of her shrugs.

"Why not? Wouldn't there have been the risk that someone would have seen the two of us together and guessed?"

"She's five years younger than you. I would have kept her in the schoolroom until you married."

"I might not have taken. I might not have found a husband. My father would have . . ."

A smile twisted the corner of Masako's lips. "Oh, you would have taken. Don't you ever look in the mirror?"

Sakura stared at her. Of course she looked in the mirror. She saw her perfectly regular features staring back at her. She didn't see Hinata's dewy eyes, or her dark curls, or her charming smile, because she didn't have any of those.

"You're a bloody fool," Masako said, reaching out for her cigar case and then dropping it again. "I'm smoking too many of these, which is entirely your fault. For Goodness sake, get yourself into a decent dress by eight this evening. You'd better go see Hinata's maid straight off; you're not fit to scrub the fireplace in that rag you're wearing."

"But I don't want Kibi to see my lip like this," Hinata said, sniffing.

"I'll instruct Yamato to put a single candelabrum on the table," her mother said. "Kiba won't be able to see a rat if it jumps on the plate in front of him."

So it all came back to the rats, which was fitting, because that's where the story began.


	3. Chapter 3

Sakura knew quite well that the household was on her side. They couldn't help it; it was bred into the bones of the best servants. They were trained to serve ladies and gentlemen, not those of their own class. Obviously they had sensed that Masako's origins were not refined. For her part, Sakura had imagined that her stepmother was a shopkeeper's daughter, who had married a colonel. She hadn't thought she was—

What she was.

A fallen woman. Her father's mistress. A trollop, by any other name.

No wonder poor Hinata found herself with child. Her mother was hardly qualified to steer her through the season. For that matter, Sakura wasn't entirely sure how to behave in polite society either. She had been only twelve when her mother retired to bed, and sixteen when her mother finally died and her father remarried. Though she'd learned how to use silverware, the finer shades of behavior in polite society escaped her.

She'd had a year of dancing instruction, but it felt as if it had happened in another lifetime. Weren't there rules about talking to princes, for example? Did you have to back out of the room after speaking to one? Or was that a rule that applied only to kings and queens?

She found Hinata's maid, Riku, in Hinata's dressing room. Years ago the chamber had been designated for guests, but at some point Hinata had amassed so many dresses—and they had no visitors—that it had been transformed into a wardrobe.

Sakura looked around with some curiosity. The room was lined with cherry cabinets clearly stuffed with gowns. Flounces of lace and corners of embroidered fabric poked from half-open drawers. The room smelled like roses and fresh linen.

"Yamato told me of the dinner tonight, and the seamstresses coming tomorrow," Riku said, "and I've been through all of Miss Hinata's gowns." That would have been no small task, given that Hinata had half again as many as her mother, though they were more neatly arranged. "I think you should wear this tonight, as it won't need more than a stitch or two around the bodice."

She held up a gown of the palest yellow silk. It wasn't particularly low-cut, but it looked to be tight until just below the bosom, when the overskirt was pulled up into curls and furbelows, revealing a dark sunflower lining.

Sakura reached out a finger. Her father had died before they would have begun the visits to modesties to assemble a wardrobe for her debut. She had gone straight from funereal blacks to sturdy cambric's, reflective of her changed position in the household.

"Couleur de rosette," Riku said briskly. "I fancy it will set off your hair a treat. You won't need stays, being so slim."

She started to unbutton her, but Sakura pushed her hands away.

"Please allow me—" Riku began.

Sakura shook her head. "I've been dressing myself for years, Riku. You can help me put that gown on, if necessary, but I will pull off my clothing myself." Which she did, leaving her in nothing more than an old chemise. She did own a pair of stays, but they were too uncomfortable to wear, as she was on horseback every day.

Riku didn't say a word, just looked at the tired chemise, and the way Sakura had darned it (not terribly well), and the length of it (too short). "Mr. Haruno . . ." the maid said, and paused.

"Turning in his grave, et cetera," Sakura said. "Let's get on with it, Riku."

So the maid began pulling out hairpins and clicking her tongue like someone counting pennies. "I never would have thought you had all this hair!" she said finally, having unpinned and unwound all of Sakura's locks.

"I don't care to have it messing about," Sakura explained. "It gets in my way while I'm working."

"You shouldn't be working!" Riku cried. "It's just wrong, all of this, and seeing you there in that chemise like a dishcloth. I didn't know." She threw down her brush and pulled open a deep drawer. Inside were stacks of pristine white chemises.

Riku snatched one. "Miss Hinata won't even notice, not that she would care because she isn't like her mother. She likes silk for her chemise," the maid said, jerking Sakura's chemise over her head and throwing it to the side. "I prefer a nice cotton, as sweat stains these terribly. But there, if you aren't dressed properly to the skin, you aren't really a lady, when all's said and done."

The chemise settled around Sakura like a translucent cloud. It was trimmed with exquisite lace.

Had her father lived and had she debuted, she would have worn garments like this all the time, not fraying, tired garments in sober grays and blues that made her look like the poor relation she was.

Her mother had left her some sort of small dowry, but without the chance to meet any eligible men, it hardly mattered. For years she'd been telling herself to leave the house, to go to Suna, to find work as a medical . . . anything to escape. But that meant deserting the tenants and the servants to Masako's haphazard and unfeeling oversight.

So she hadn't left.

An hour later her hair was curled and tousled and swept up into an approximation of Hinata's. Her face was dusted with rice powder, the better to approximate the pampered look of her sister's skin; she was swathed in pale yellow, and her lips were painted to match.

She stood in front of the glass waiting for a moment of startled recognition. To realize that she really looked like Hinata, that she too would be accounted a great beauty.

Not only did she not resemble her sister, but she would be accounted a beauty only by a blind man. She looked too angular and the dress hung oddly from her shoulders.

Riku plucked at one sleeve. "You're broader in the arms than Miss Hinata," she muttered.

Sakura glanced down at her offending limb and knew exactly what the problem was. She spent at least two or three hours a day in the saddle, trying to manage the estate the way her father's bailiff had done, before her stepmother threw him out of the house. Her arms were muscled, and lightly colored from the sun. She couldn't imagine that other young ladies faced that particular problem.

What's more, her cheekbones were too pronounced, her eyebrows too sharp. "I don't look like Hinata," she said, a bit dismally. She had vaguely hoped that fashionable clothing would transform her, making her as beautiful as her sister. A woman whom all the High Society of Konoha considered a diamond.

She looked more like a flinty stone than a diamond. Like herself.

"The style doesn't suit you," Riku admitted. "Yellow wasn't the right idea. You need bold colors, more like—."

"You do know why I have to look like Hinata, don't you?" Sakura knew perfectly well that Yamato had followed her up the stairs and positioned himself outside her stepmother's bedchamber, intent on hearing the entire conversation.

Riku set her mouth primly. "Nothing that I shouldn't know, I would hope."

"I am to accompany Lord Inuzuka on a visit to Uchiha Castle, and I need to make everyone there think I'm Hinata."

The maid's eyes met her own in the mirror.

"It won't work," Sakura said, accepting it. "She's just too beautiful."

"You're beautiful too," Hinata said stoutly. "But in a different way."

"My mouth's too big, and when did I get so thin?"

"Since your father died and you started doing the work of ten people. Miss Hinata, bless her soul, is as soft as a pillow, but she would be, wouldn't she?"

Sakura eyed the material draped over her bosom. Or rather, where her bosom ought to be. "Can't we do something about my chest, Riku? In this dress, I don't seem to have one at all."

Riku plucked at the extra material. "You've a nice little bosom, Miss Sakura. Don't worry. I can't do much for it in this dress, but I'll find others that will work better. Thanks be to God, Miss Hinata has more gowns in her chambers than a modiste would after a year's labor." A moment later she had tucked two rolled-up stockings into the front of Sakura's chemise, and that was that.

It was odd how her similar features resulted in such a different appearance from Hinata's. Of course, she was five years older. All ruffled and curled and made up, she looked like a desperate aging virgin.

Panic was a new sensation. Never having been offered the chance to dress like a lady, at least not for years, Sakura had rather forgotten that her nubile years were passing.

She'd be twenty-four in a few weeks, and she felt as long in the tooth as a dowager.

Why hadn't she noticed that she wasn't rounded and charming and delectable anymore? When had bitterness entered her bloodstream and—and changed her from a young girl into something else?

"This isn't going to work," she said abruptly. "I don't have the faintest resemblance to a young debutante who took the whole of Konoha by storm."

"It's a matter of wearing the right clothing," Riku said. "You don't look your best in this gown, miss. But I'll find a better one for you."

There wasn't much Sakura could do but nod. She had thought . . .

Well, she hadn't thought much about it. But she knew that she wanted to be married, and to have children of her own.

A sharp pang of panic rose into her throat. What if she was already too old? What if she never—

She cut off the thought.

She would do this visit for Hinata, for her newfound sister's sake. After that, she would leave, go to Suna and parlay her modest inheritance, the money her mother had left, into a marriage license.

Women had done that for years, and she could do it as well.

She straightened her shoulders. Since her father died, she had learned what it felt like to be humiliated: to tuck your hands out of sight when you saw acquaintances for fear they would see the reddened fingers. To hold your boots close to the horse's side so that no one saw the worn spots. To pretend you left your bonnet at home, time after time.

This was just a new kind of humiliation—to be dressed as a lamb while feeling like a mutton. She would get through it.

* * *

By the time Sakura escaped to her room hours later, she was exhausted. She had been up at five that morning to do three hours of accounts, then was on a horse at eight . . . not to mention the emotional toll taken by the day's charming revelations. At dinner, Masako had been snappy even with the viscount, and Hinata had wept softly through three courses.

And now the dogs—the "rats"—were waiting for her, sitting in a little semicircle.

There was no more fashionable accessory than a small dog, and Hinata and Masako, with their characteristic belief that twenty-three ball gowns were better than one, had acquired not one small dog, but three.

Three small, yapping, silky Malteses.

They were absurdly small, smaller than most cats. And they had a sort of elegant sleekness about them that she found an affront. If she ever had a dog, she'd want it to be one of the lop-eared, grinning dogs that ran out to greet her when she stopped by the cottages on Masako's lands. A dog that barked rather than yapped.

Though at the moment they weren't yapping. As she entered her small room, they rose in a little wave and surrounded her ankles in a burst of furry waving tails and hot bodies. They were probably lonely. Before the bite, they were always at Hinata's side. Perhaps they were hungry. Or worse, they might need to visit the garden. If only she had a bell in her room . . . but persons of her status had no need to call servants.

"I suppose," she said slowly, thinking of the stairs and her aching legs, "I have to take you outside." In point of fact, she should be grateful that they had not urinated in her room; it was so small and the one window so high that the smell would last a month or more.

It took a few minutes to figure out how to attach ropes to their jeweled collars, not helped by the fact that they had begun yapping, jumping up and trying to lick her face. It was hard not to flinch away.

She trudged down the back stairs that led to her room, her steps echoed by the scrabbling little claws of the rats. She was so tired that she couldn't even remember their names, though she thought they were all alliterative, perhaps Fairy and Flower.

"What do they eat?" she asked Yamato a few minutes later. He had been kind enough to accompany her to the kitchen garden and show her the area fenced off for the dogs' use.

"I sent Roma up to your chamber an hour or so ago; he fed them and brought them out for a walk. I will admit to disliking those dogs, but they're not vicious animals," he said, watching them. "It's not really their fault."

They were all piling on top of each other, a mass of plumy tails and sharp noses.

"Caesar didn't intend to bite Miss Hinata," he continued. "You needn't worry that he'll bite you."

"Caesar? I thought they were all named after flowers."

"That's part of their trouble," Yamato said. "Miss Hinata never quite settled on names for them. She changed them every week or so. They started out as Fury, Flower, and Fusion. Currently they are Coco, Caesar, and Chester. Before that, they were Mopsie, Maria, and something else. The lead dog—see the slightly larger one? That one is Caesar. The other two are Coco and Chester, though Chester never learned to respond to any name other than Fusion."

"Why did Caesar bite Hinata, anyway? I never thought to ask."

"She was feeding him from her mouth."

"What?"

"Holding a piece of meat between her lips and encouraging him to take it from her. Foolish business, coming between a dog and his meat."

Sakura shuddered. "That is disgusting."

"Princess Choko has trained her dogs to do the same by all accounts," Yamato said. "The princess has a lot to answer for."

"So how do I keep them quiet at night?" Sakura asked, longing for her bed.

"Just treat them like dogs, with respect, but firm-like. Miss Hinata made the mistake of thinking they were babies, and then she would get annoyed and send them down to the kitchen whenever they misbehaved, so they never learned better. I'll give you a little bag of cheese scraps. Give them a piece every time they do something right and they'll be fine."

Back in her room Sakura discovered that the dogs had their own personalities. Caesar was remarkably unintelligent. He seemed to believe that he was very large: He prowled and pounced and kept issuing promises to attack anyone who entered the room. In fact, he reminded her of an imperial general; his name befitted him.

Fusion was lonely, or at least that's what she surmised when he jumped onto the bed, licked her knee, and wagged his tail madly. Then he gave her a dramatically imploring look, quickly followed by a roll onto his back with his legs in the air. In short, he was silly and Fusion suited him better than Fred.

Coco showed every sign of being remarkably vain. Hinata had glued tiny sparkling gems into the fur around her neck, and rather than trying to scratch them off, as would any self-respecting mongrel, Coco sat with her paws perfectly aligned and her nose in the air. She showed no sign of wishing to approach Sakura's bed, but arranged herself elegantly on a velvet cushion that had appeared on Sakura's floor along with a bowl of water.

Sakura pulled Fusion out of her bed and dropped him on the floor, but he jumped straight back up again. And she was too tired, too bone-deep tired, to do anything about it.

So she lay there for a moment thinking about her father, little pulses of anger going through her body. How could he have done this? He must have loved Masako; otherwise, why would he marry his mistress?

It was a good thing that she never made her debut. She knew little of society, all things told, but she knew that no one would befriend a young lady whose stepmother was a woman of ill repute, even given that Masako did marry her protector.

And yet Masako and Hinata had simply marched into Konoha, opened up her father's town house, and established Hinata as a beautiful young heiress.

There was a lesson there, she thought sleepily.

* * *

_The next morning_

The hairdresser and the two Konoha doctors arrived together the next morning, one prepared to cut off Sakura's hair and the others to lance Hinata's lip. Both sisters refused. Masako had hysterics, waving her cigar around her head and shrieking like a fishwife.

But the session with Riku the evening before had cleared Sakura's mind. She wasn't getting any younger, and her only crowning glory was her hair. She already looked too thin, almost haggard. Her face might look even worse without her masses of pink hair.

"I refuse!" she declared, raising her voice over Hinata's sobs.

The odd thing was that she had rarely refused anything. She had fought her stepmother tooth and nail in the past seven years: fought her when she sacked the house steward and told Sakura to do the purchasing instead; fought her when she dismissed the bailiff and threw the books at Sakura and told her to do them at night.

But she had never refused to do anything. She had taken up the estate books, and the bills, and the general management, said goodbye to her governess, to various maids, to the bailiff, and to the house steward.

She found it rather ironic that vanity was the point over which she discovered her backbone. "I won't do it," she repeated, over and over.

Sir Beki threw up his hands, declaring in a trilling French accent that a smart crop would make her look ten years younger, and (he implied) that she needed every one of those ten years.

Sakura hardened her heart. "I am grateful for your opinion, sir, but no."

"You'll ruin it," Masako cried, her voice careening to the edge of frenzy and back. "You'll ruin everything. Your sister won't be able to marry, and she'll have her child out of wedlock."

Sakura saw Sir Beki's eyes widen and she gave him a look. Seven years of estate management had given her a quite effective glare; he flinched.

"It's all right, Mother," Hinata put in, sniffling, "Sakura will simply have to wear wigs, that's all. She'll be hot, but it's a matter of only a few days."

"Wigs," Masako said, with a kind of strangled gasp.

"I have them in all sorts of colors to match my dresses," Hinata said. "If Riku plaits Sakura's hair every morning and then pins it flat, she would be perfectly fashionable and everyone will simply assume that I love my wigs."

"True," Masako said, taking a hard draw on her cigarillo.

"I'll even give you my Circassia Scalp," Hinata said.

Sakura wrinkled her nose.

"No, it's lovely, an elegant pale blue wig that goes beautifully with gowns in blue and green. Plus there's a jeweled bandeau to wear with it, which will help it stay on your head."

"Fine," Masako said. "Now the medics are going to lance your lip, Hinata, and that is the last I want to hear from either of you for the rest of the day."

Hinata screamed and cried, but at last the grim deed was done.

Masako retired to bed with a headache; Hinata retired to bed with a weeping fit; Sakura took the dogs with her on a visit to the Yamagachees.

* * *

_Uchiha Castle_

So what's the matter with the lion?" Sasuke asked Naruto, walking quickly across the outer courtyard toward the makeshift zoo that graced the back wall.

"I haven't the faintest idea. He can't seem to stop vomiting," Naruto replied.

"Poor old thing," Sasuke said, coming to the lion's cage. The beast was crouched against the back wall, its sides heaving painfully. He'd had ownership of it for only a few months, but its eyes used to be full of light, as if it were longing to spring from the cage and eat a bystander.

It didn't look like that anymore. Its eyes were glazed and miserable. If it were a horse, he would have . . .

"It's not old enough to die," Naruto said, as if he heard Sasuke's thought.

"Itachi told me it wouldn't last more than a year."

"The Grand Duke no longer wished for his zoo so he may have exaggerated the beast's age. The lion is only five years old and should live many more, as I understand it."

"How are the rest of them?" Sasuke walked past the lion's cage toward that of the elephant, and found Lyssa swaying placidly in her cage. She had a sweet temperament; at the sight of him she blew some straw in a companionable sort of way. "What's that monkey doing in there with her?"

"They became friends during the ocean passage," Naruto said. "They seem happier together."

Sasuke walked closer and peered at the monkey. "Damned if I know what kind that is. Do you?"

"As I understand it, she's called a pocket monkey. The Grand Duke was given her by a pasha."

"And the elephant came along with that Indian raja, didn't she? I wish people would stop giving animals as gifts. This courtyard smells."

Naruto sniffed loudly. "True. We could move them to the gardens behind the hedge maze."

"Lyssa would get lonely out there by herself. I don't suppose we can let her out of her cage now and then, could we?"

"I could ascertain whether we might build an enclosure in the orchards," Naruto said.

Sasuke stared at the unlikely pair for another moment. The monkey was sitting on the elephant's head, stroking a big ear with her knotty-looking fingers. "Have you had any luck finding someone to care for the animals who actually knows something about elephants and the like?"

"No," Naruto said. "We tried to lure a man from Pit's Circus, but he refused to leave his own lions."

"We can't have Pit's lions along with our own, the poor sick bastard." He walked back to the first cage. "What the hell could be the matter with it, Naruto?"

"Prince Madara suggested that it might be accustomed to a diet of human flesh, but I thought it best to ignore the implications of that comment."

"In lieu of that, what have we been feeding it?"

"Beefsteak," Naruto said. "Good stuff too."

"Maybe it's too rich. What does my uncle eat after a bad night?"

"Soup."

"Try that."

Naruto raised an eyebrow but nodded.

"On that charming topic, where is my uncle?"

"His Highness is working on the battle of Crow this morning. He has commandeered the pigsty, which is happily free of occupants, and renamed it the The Great War Museum. Forty or fifty milk bottles represent the various regiments and their leaders. His exhibit," Naruto added, "is very popular with the servants' children."

"He's happy then," Sasuke said. "I suppose—"

He was interrupted as a tall man trotted into the courtyard. He had hair like thistledown, which stood straight in the air and waved slightly every time he moved. "Speak of the devil," Sasuke said, bowing.

"Same to you, dear boy," his uncle Prince Madara said vaguely. "Same to you. Have you seen my poor dog anywhere?"

Naruto moved slightly behind Sasuke's shoulder and said quietly, "There is some belief that the lion ate him."

"Fur and all?"

"It might explain the beast's current plight."

"I have not seen your dog," Sasuke told his uncle.

"Just yesterday he ate a whole plate of pickled crab apples," Prince Madara said, looking a bit tearful. "I have him on a pickled diet, everything pickled. I think it's much better for his digestion."

The pickled apples might not have agreed with the dog—or, secondhand, with the lion. "Perhaps he ran away," Sasuke said, turning toward the great arch that led back to the inner courtyard. "He may have not appreciated your dietary innovations."

"My dog adores pickled food," Madara stated. "Adores it, especially pickled tomatoes."

"Next time, try pickled fish." From the corner of his eye, Sasuke could see two aunts approaching, out for a stroll, waving their fingers in his direction, smiling archly. He started moving more quickly, avoiding the cook's child at the last minute, striding finally into his chamber with a feeling of having narrowly escaped.

The problem with having a castle was that a castle was filled with people. And they were all his people, one way or another: his relatives, his lion, his elephant, his servants . . . even the pickle-eating dog was his responsibility, though it sounded as if it might have escaped to the great hunting ground in the sky. Probably gratefully.

"I'll take a gun out and look for birds," he told his manservant, a lugubrious man named Pole, who had been discarded from his brother's court because he knew far too much about the sexual tastes of every courtier.

"Excellent," Pole said, putting out a riding coat and breeches. "Young Amino could do with some fresh air. Naruto is training him in service and he's not taking to it easy-like. He will do to carry back the birds."

"Right."

"May I suggest that you ask the Honorable Neji Hyuuga to accompany you?" Pole said, placing a pair of clean stockings precisely parallel to the breeches.

"Who in the world is that?"

"He arrived yesterday, with a note from Queen Channa. You would have met him this evening, but I gather the meal will be family only, given the imminent arrival of your nephew. So it would be polite to greet the gentleman now."

"And he is of what sort?"

"I would suggest that he is of a preaching nature—"

"Oh no," Sasuke said. "My brother's court was overrun by religious types. I don't want any of those here. You don't want that, Pole. If I turn into my brother, you and the lion would be out in the cold."

Pole smiled in a slightly detached way, as if he had been told a joke of extreme indelicacy. "I have faith that Your Highness will not succumb to the delectations of a roaming preacher, as did His Majesty Grand Duke Itachi. Mr. Hyuuga preaches in a different arena. I have warned all the younger maids to stay away from the east wing. He has a quite amusing way about him; he was exerting it on the Princess Tenten this morning, but I fancy she was unmoved."

"I fancy you're right about that," he agreed. "And what is Mr. Hyuuga looking for in my household?"

"My guess would be that he is rusticating due to debts in Suna," Pole observed. "His stockings are quite interesting—a brilliant orange, with clocks—and his coat is worth more than a moderate-sized emerald."

If Pole said that, it was true. Pole knew all about emeralds.

"All right," Sasuke said. "Tell Naruto I'm in the gun room and send a note to Neji requesting his company. I believe my uncle might like to go as well."

Down in the gun room, he set to polishing the barrel of his Haas. It was a lovely tool, one of the only air guns he'd seen with seven rifling grooves, allowing a man to switch in a moment from hunting deer to hunting pheasants.

A pulse of relief, so old that it felt as familiar as his morning beard bristles, panged in the area of his heart. He'd decided years ago that it was far better to be a prince than a grand duke.

For all that Sasuke thought his older brother was a dried-up old stick, he felt sorry for him. It wasn't a pleasant task, ruling a small principality.

His mouth tightened. If Itachi hadn't lost his mind a few months ago, Sasuke would be in the Land of Earth at this very moment, quarreling with his professor, Kakashi over excavation of the legendary city of Water.

He wouldn't be sitting in a damp castle in a puddle of summer rain, surrounded by elderly family members and debt-ridden courtiers . . . he'd be sweating in the sun, making sure the dig didn't turn into a greedy ransacking of history.

Sasuke looked down to discover that he was polishing the Haas's barrel so hard that he was likely to obliterate the duchy's coat of arms.

Damned Itachi and his damned ideas. Sasuke had been on the very eve of leaving for the Land of Earth when his brother's religious fervor burst into flame, inspiring the Grand Duke to expel from his court everyone he considered corrupt, infirm, awkward, or mad.

In short, practically everyone, and all to save Itachi's self-righteous little soul.

One by one, each of his elder cousins had refused to intercede, either because he was sucking up to Itachi or because he just didn't give a damn.

Finally it was left to Sasuke. He could accept a godforsaken castle in Konoha, big enough to house all those deemed too imperfect to grace Itachi's court, or he could leave for the Land of Earth and never look back.

Put Naruto and Madara and the pickle-eating dog and all the rest of them out of his mind.

He couldn't do it.

So . . . rain rather than blinding sun. A bride on her way from Russia, with a dowry to support the castle. And a castle full of miscreants and misfits, rather than an excavation site full of crumbled rocks and bits of statuary that might, eons ago, have been the magnificent city of the Land of Water.

Not that he believed it was the Land of Water. He had wrangled his way into the excavation because he didn't believe in Dido, the famous Queen of Water, or even the existence of the city, for that matter. It was all a myth, made up by Vivi.

And now Taiya was out there in the Land of Earth chortling and labeling half the rocks in the countryside "Water." Hell, by now he'd probably identified Dido's supposed funeral pyre. The next step would be articles detailing his sloppy assumptions and sloppier fieldwork. Sasuke's jaw clenched at the thought.

But he had no choice, not really. He wasn't Itachi, with his religious principles unleavened by a sense of humor. He couldn't watch everyone he grew up with, from his cracked uncle to his father's jester (seventy-five, if he was a day), be thrown into the street because Itachi deemed them likely to tarnish his halo.

The only thing he could do was pray that Itachi's choice for his bride—probably devout and whiskered, as virtuous as she was virginal—had enough backbone to run the castle, so that he could leave for The Land of Earth.

He didn't really care who she was, as long as she could manage the castle in his absence. Beddable would be nice; biddable was a necessity.

He bent back over the Haas.

* * *

After four hours in the carriage with Lord Inuzuka, Sakura decided that the most interesting thing about Kiba was that he wore a corset. She'd never dreamed that men wore stays.

"They pinch me," Kiba confided. "But one must suffer to be elegant; that's what my valet says."

Since Sakura disliked suffering, she was very glad that the seamstresses had not had time to alter one of Hinata's traveling costumes to the point of elegant pinching. The one she was wearing bunched comfortably around the waist.

"The padding doesn't help," Kiba said fretfully.

"What have you padded?" Sakura asked, eyeing him.

"Everyone's costumes are padded these days," he said, avoiding the particulars. "At any rate, I don't want you to think that I'd ordinarily discuss such a thing with you, except that you are my family. Well, almost my family. Do you mind if I begin calling you Hinata immediately? I'm not very good with names and I don't want to become confused in company."

"Not at all," Sakura assured him. "How does my sister address you?"

"Oh, as Kibi," he said, cheering up. "You should as well. That's one of the things that I love about Hinata. She never stands on ceremony . . . she started calling me Kiba directly after she met me, and then she shortened it to Kibi. That's how I knew," he added, somewhat mysteriously.

"Knew what?"

"Knew that she was the one for me. It was fated, really. We felt a wonderful closeness and we both knew."

It was fated due to the lack of a governess, to Sakura's mind. Hinata's charming intimacies—verbal and otherwise—were result of inadequate guidance. She would even guess that Masako had encouraged various improprieties.

Sakura would rather slay herself than marry Kiba, but she could see why Hinata adored him. He had a coziness, a kind of sweetness around his mouth and eyes that was soothing antidote to Masako's bitterness.

"I just wish we arrive at the castle," he said irritably. His collar was so high that it was chafing his ears, Sakura noticed. She herself was lounging back on the padded carriage seat, so comfortable that she could hardly move. Normally by this time in the day she would have already been on a horse for hours.

"Are you worried about meeting your uncle?" she inquired.

"Why should I be? He comes from a little backwater, a principality they call it over there—Hardly a kingdom. I can't imagine why he has a title. It's absurd."

"I believe there are many small principalities on the Continent," Sakura said, with a touch of doubt. Masako didn't believe in taking a newspaper, and her schooling, such as it was, had come from filching books from her father's library not that her stepmother had ever noticed their absence.

"I would just introduce you, and then we could leave in the morning, but the prince insisted that you attend his ball. Most clear, his letter was. I expect he's worried that he won't be able to fill the ballroom." He eyes her. "My mother suspects that he might be making a play for you."

"Not for me," Sakura corrected him. "For my half sister."

"And isn't that a turn-up for the books," Kiba said gloomily. "I must say that I thought the coloniel existed. I couldn't believe it when Mrs. Haruno told me the truth of it last night. You'd never know it from looking at her, would you? If my mother ever finds out, she'll explode."

Sakura thought one _would_ know it from looking at her stepmother, but she nodded, out of some vague sense of family loyalty. "There's no reason your mother need ever discover the truth, I certainly won't tell anyone."

"At any rate, I love Hinata, and I must marry her, and my mother wants me to have the prince's approval, and that's that."

Sakura gave Kiba an approving pat on the knee. It must have been difficult to get so many thoughts in logical order and she certainly didn't want to ignore his accomplishment. It was interesting to see what a healthy fear he had of his mother; that might explain why Masako's demand that marry Hinata had instantly borne fruit.

"We should be entering his lands now," Kiba said. "The man owns an awful amount of land in Lanca, you know. My uncle thought it was an abomination, turning good Konoha soil over to a foreigner. For all he went to the best schools there is and so on, the prince still has foreign blood."

"As you do," Sakura pointed out. "You are related to him through your mother, no?"

"Well, my mother…" Kiba said, letting his voice trail off. Apparently he didn't consider her blood to carry the foreign taint. "You know that I mean."

"Have you ever met the prince?"

"Once or twice, when I was small. It's rubbish, his being my uncle. He's not that much older than I am: perhaps ten years or a bit more. So why should I be forced to parade my bride in front of him? It's not as if he's a king. He's just a spare prince."

"It will be quickly over," Sakura said.

"He's desperate for funds, of course," Kiba reported, "I heard that his betrothed is—"

But whatever bit of hearsay he was about to pass on was lost in a welter of noise. The coachman suddenly bellowed and pulled the carriage to the right; the wheels squealed as they careened across the road; the dogs lost their breath expressing their opinions. Mercifully the vehicle came to a stop without toppling over, and the second carriage (carrying trunks, Riku, and Kiba's valet), managed to avoid bowling them over.

Kiba pulled down his waistcoat, which had got rucked up in the disturbance. "I'd better see what happened. This will take a man," he said, looking not a day older than his eighteen years. "You stay here where it's safe. I've no doubt but that we have a bit of trouble with the axle or some such."

Sakura gave him a moment to exit from the carriage and then straightened her traveling bonnet and followed him.

Outside, she found the groomsman soothing the horses, while Kiba himself was bowing so deeply that she expected his ears to touch his knees.

A man who had to be the prince was seated on a great chestnut steed, and for a moment she could see his dark silhouette against the sun. She had the confused impression of his motion and power, and easily controlled: an aggressive body, with big shoulders and muscled thighs.

She raised her hand to her eyes to shade the sun just as he leaped from his horse. Dark hair swirled around his shoulders as if he were one of the actors who came through the village to play King.

Her eyes adjusted and she changed that idea. He was no King…more the king of the fairies, eyes at a slight, wicked tilt, and just a hint of the exotic. His "foreign blood," as Kiba had it.

He had an accent, a delicious smokey accent that matched his eyes and his thick hair, and there was something else about him, something more _alive_, more powerful and arrogant than the pallid Konohamen she met every day.

She realized her mouth had fallen open, and snapped it shut. Thank goodness, he hadn't noticed her.

Groveling probably happened before the prince all the time. His Highness was nodding at Kiba. His servant had dismounted and was standing about him. The man to the left was precisely what Sakura imagined courtiers should be, all curled and colorful like a peacock. There was even a boy in splendid red livery. Apparently they were out shooting, a royal shooting party.

Then he did notice her.

He surveyed her coolly, as if she were a milkmaid at the side of the road. There wasn't a spark of interest in the man's eyes, just a haughty calculation, as if she'd offered to sell him milk and found it curdled. As if he were mentally stripping off her too-large traveling costume and string at the stockings rolled up inside Sakura's corset.

She inclined her head a fraction of an inch. She'd be damned if she'd rush forward and curtsy, there in the dust and the road, to a prince whose self-importance mattered more than his manners.

He didn't react. Didn't nod, didn't smile, just looked away and turned back his horse, swung onto the saddle, and rode away. His back was even larger than she'd at first thought, larger than the smithy's in the village, larger than…

She's never met anyone so rude in her life, and that included the smithy, who was often drunk and so had an excuse.

Kiba was snapping at the footman, telling him to open the carriage door and make it quick. "Of course it wasn't the prince's fault that our horses were startled by his party," he said. "Now get us back on the road and be quick about it."

"Caesar!" Sakura called. The little dog was busy yapping at the heels of a horse who could brain him with one restless movement. "Come!"

Kiba motioned to a footman, but Sakura stopped him. "Caesar has to learn to obey," she said, taking out her bag of cheese.

Fusion and Coco crowded against her skirts, acting like the ravenous little pigs they were. She gave them each a piece of cheese and a pat, and then all of a sudden Caesar realized what was going on. "Come!" she called again.

He came, and she gave him a piece of cheese.

"Tedious business," Kiba remarked.

"Yes," Sakura agreed with a sign.

"But they do seem to be less noise. I'm afraid Hinata has too soft a nature. Just look what happened to her poor lip."

Once they were seated Kiba said, rather unnecessarily, "That was my uncle. The prince." His tone was reverent and hushed.

"He seemed prince-like," Sakura agreed.

"Can you imagined what His Highness would make of Hinata's background?" He sounded horrified at the thought.

"I wonder what his bride will be alike," Sakura said, again picturing the prince silhouette against the sun. He was the sort of man who would marry a glimmering princess from a foreign land, a woman wrapped in ropes of pearls and diamonds.

"Russian women are dark-haired," Kiba said, trying to sound as if he knew what he was talking about. "I might have introduced you, but I thought it was better that he not noticed you until …" He waved a hand. "You know, until you change."

As far as Sakura could tell, he hadn't minded a bit that Sakura didn't look as pretty as Hinata—until now.

"I'm sorry," she told him.

He focused, blinking a little. "For what?"

"I'm not as much fun to have on your arm as Hinata. The prince would surely have noticed how beautiful she is."

Kiba was too young to dissemble. "I do wish she were here," he said. "But it's probably better this way, because what if she saw him and she decided…" His voice trailed off.

"Hinata adores you," Sakura told him, feeling pleased with herself for suppressing an impulse to add "more the fool she is." They were perfectly matched, Hinata and Kiba: both fuzzy and sweet and awed by anyone with two thoughts to knock together. "And remember the prince would never in a million years marry someone like Hinata. I expect that he's too high in the instep for even a duke's daughter, let alone someone like my stepsister."

Caesar growled out the window at a passing carriage. "On the floor," she said sternly, and he hopped down. But Fusion put his front paws on the seat and whined gently, so she let him jump up and sit next to her. He leaned his trembling little body against her and then collapsed, chin in her lap.

"I say, that's not fair," Kiba pointed out.

"Life isn't fair," Sakura said. "Fusion is being rewarded for not barking."

"He's brilliant," Kiba said, rather unexpectedly.

Sakura blinked down at Fusion, who was decidedly _not _brilliant.

"I mean the prince. My mother said that he actually took a degree at Konoford. I didn't even bother going to university. But he took a top degree in ancient history. Or something like that."

The prince had not only arrogance and royal blood and a truly beautiful coat, but _brains_?

Not so likely. Weren't all those princes inbred? "Likely they give every prince a top degree just for gracing the door of the university," she pointed out. "After all, what else could they say? 'I do apologize, Your Highness, but you're stupid as a hedgehog, and so we can't give you a degree'?"

As they trundled the last miles to the castle, she carefully nurtured that spring of disrespect for a man whose hair flow wildly around his shoulders, who spent his time careening about accompanied by scented courtiers, and who didn't bother to greet her.

He counted her beneath his notice, which was humiliating but not exactly unexpected. She _was _beneath his notice.

In fact, thinking about the way he looked at her was almost amusing, in retrospect. She just had to get through the next few days. Then she could take all her newly altered clothing and go to Suna and find just the sort of man she wanted.

She could see him in her mind's eye. She didn't want a man like that prince; what she wanted was someone more like Squire Choji, whose property ran close by Haruno House. He was a sweet man who doted on his wife. They had nine children. That's what she wanted. Someone straight and true, decent, and kind to the bone.

The very thought made her smile, which caught Kiba's attention. "Did you see the waistcoat Neji Hyuuga was wearing? He was the tall one, with the striped costume." Obviously Kiba had been experiencing some anxiety.

"Yours is very nice," she assured him.

Kiba looked down at his chest. "I thought so, I mean, I do think so. But the waistcoat…"

They had both found something to desire.


	4. Chapter 4

Sakura didn't know much about castles; she had only seen engravings in one of her father's books. She had thought Uchiha Castle would have airy flounces and furbelows, slender turrets, a pile of rose-colored brick in the setting sun.

Instead it was four-square and masculine, with the aggressive look of military fortress. The two turrets were round and squat. There was nothing lyrical about it. It bristled, its wall thick and bossy, like a stout watchman with someone to scold.

The carriage trolled down a gravel drive, through the stone archway and into a courtyard. The door to the carriage swung open and Sakura stepped down, taking the hand of one of Masako's groomsmen, to find that the courtyard was so crowded with people that she was tempted to turn and peer under the carriage to see if they had accidentally run someone over.

A confused stream of persons was clattering in every direction, heading for arched passages on all sides. As she watched, a donkey cart piled with sacks of laundry narrowly avoided a man holding a stick, from which hung at least ten fish, bound for the kitchens, no doubt. He was followed by a man carrying a crate of live chickens, their heads poking between the slats. Two boys were carrying bunches of roses bigger than their heads, and narrowly missed being drenched as a maid tossed out what one could only hope was nothing worse than dirty water.

Castle footman, dressed in elegant, somber livery, quickly ushered them over the flagstones and through a second archway, into a second courtyard…where everything was transformed. Here was a quiet, beautiful space, as if the castle fiercely repelled those outside the walls, but celebrated its own occupants.

The last rays of the sun caught Sakura's eyes and dazzled them, making the windows look like molten gold, and the people strolling through the inner courtyard like denizens of the French court: beautiful, relaxed, noble.

The castle was sober outside, and drunk on champagne inside.

She felt a flash of pure fear. What on earth was she doing, descending from a carriage in an ill-fitting traveling costume, pretending to be–

She glanced at Kiba and saw the tight anxiety in his eyes and knew that he didn't belong here either: that this gathering of people shouting at one another in a different language, so carefully elegant and carelessly beautiful, was more than he had experienced before.

And he was her family, or he soon would be. "You look splendid," she said warmly. "Just look how unfashionably that gentleman is dressed!"

In fact, she had no real idea what was fashionable and what wasn't, but it was a fair bet. The man in question had almost no collar at all, whereas Kiba had three.

He followed her gaze and immediately brightened up. "Dear me, just look at those buttons," he remarked.

They were greeted by a Mr. Uzumaki, who introduced himself as the majordomo of the Castle. He announced that he would personally escort Sakura, trailing Riku, to a bedchamber in the west wing, and sent Kiba and his man off in the charge of a footman.

They walked through long corridors illuminated by the deep eyes of slitted windows open to the outside air, and then through a room hung with a worn tapestry depicting two knights on horseback.

It all fascinated Sakura. How did one keep the castle warm in the winter, when most of the outside windows seemed to have no glass? And what happened when rain drove through those narrow slits, as it sometimes must? She paused for a moment and peered through one of the little openings onto the courtyard. She found, to her delight, clever gutters built to drain away water. The wall was extraordinarily thick, at least the length of her arm.

Naruto had waited for her. "I was just investigating the gutters," she told him.

"The windows are slanted to reduce wind pressure," he told her, setting out again. "The west wing is just ahead. This is the main gallery. All chambers in this wing lead from this hall; yours is the second from the end on the left. I have given you a room facing the courtyard, as even in this mild weather, those facing the outside can be a tad chilly at night."

The gallery was punctuated at regular intervals by doors, on either side of which sprouted pillars. After one glance, Sakura broke out laughing; at the top of each pillar was a cherub, a frivolous, laughing cherub. And they were all different. On one side of her door was a naughty child with flower petals in his hair, and on the other, a little priest with starched wings instead of a neck cloth.

Sakura stood in the middle of the corridor, turning around to make sure that she saw everyone. Finally she glanced down again to see Naruto patiently waiting, not in the least annoyed.

"How on earth did this come about?" she asked.

"As I understand it, a young son of the Uchiha family traveled in the 1500s to the Land of Thunder and found himself enamored of Italian sculptors. So he stole one and brought the poor man here. The sculptor was so irritated by his kidnapping that he turned everyone in the household into a cherub, and when he was finished, escaped in a butter churn and was never heard from again."

"He escaped with a sculptor?" Sakura asked, fascinated.

Naruto nodded. "This is your bedchamber, Miss Haruno. Please do not hesitate to ring if there is anything we can do to further your comfort." And he showed them where the bell cord was to summon Riku, and how the tin bath was cleverly secreted under the tall bed.

He cast one look around the room, frowned at a vase of roses as if warning them not to droop, and took himself off.

"Oh miss," Riku said, "didn't it take us an hour to walk here, then? And that cold stone went straight through my slippers. My, but I'd hate to live here.

"Really?" Sakura said. "But it's so interesting. Like living in a fairy tale."

"Not a fairy tale I'd like," Riku said. "The place must be horribly damp by the water; just feel the stone over by the window. Ugh. And I expect it smells when it rains too. I prefer Haruno House, with nice wood paneling to keep a body warm, and a proper water closet. I do love water closet."

"But this is the kind of place that people committed crimes to build," Sakura said, rather dreamily. "I wonder what the Uchiha family was like. From what I saw of one portrait we passed, the men had long upper lips and hawk noses. Perhaps he was the one who stole the Italian sculptor."

"That's not a nice thing to do," Riku started. "Though I did see an Italian at the fair once that was so small he would probably fit in a butter churn easy-like. When do you suppose those footman will be bringing up your trunks, then? I'll say this, the room has wardrobes enough for Miss Hinata's garments, and that's handy."

Naruto was nothing if not efficient; there was a brisk rap on the door and in came a string of footman carrying the trunks, as well as cans of hot water ready to be poured into the tin bath.

A few minutes later, Sakura settled into that bath with a sigh of pure joy. All in all, she'd done less so far that day than she had for years, since her position was not the sort that allowed one relax of a Sunday—or even Christmas day, for that matter. But somehow it was as exhausting to travel in a coach as it was to ride a horse.

"I don't wish to hurry you, Miss Sakura," Riku said after a time. "But Mr. Uzumaki said that once the bell rings, you must make your way down all those stairs to the silver drawing room, wherever that is, though I believe he left a footman to guide your way. Still, I'm worried about the fit of this gown."

So Sakura reluctantly climbed from her bath, though she wouldn't allow Riku to dry her. "I'm not a child in the nursery," she said, positively wrestling the maid for the toweling cloth. "I'll do it myself."

"It isn't proper," Riku said, yielding.

"Why on earth not?" Sakura demanded. "Why shouldn't a lady dry her own body? If you ask me, the impropriety is in having someone touching you all over."

"You'll just have to accept it," Riku said. "Ladies don't towel themselves. Not ever."

"Goodness gracious," Sakura said with a sigh. "I suppose it's too late for me to try to become a lady. It would take a magic wand at this point."

"You _are_ a lady," Riku said stoutly. "It's in your blood." She braided Sakura's hair and pinned on a frizzled wig in a delicate shade of violet, with a jeweled comb to hold it in place.

Her gown was cream-colored and sewn all over with pearl embroidery. Riku had stitched pockets into the bosom and filled them with mounded wax, so Sakura looked miraculously endowed in the front.

"It's not terrible," Sakura said, viewing herself in the glass.

"How can you say that?" Riku demanded. "You look wonderful, miss. Just beautiful!"

Sakura turned to the side. The gown was caught up under her wax breasts and the cloth fell lightly to the ground, with just the tips of her slippers showing. They too were embroidered with pearls.

"I'd put you in a pair of glass slippers," Riku said, almost to herself," but they're only good for one night, and it's just a family dinner. They won't be inspecting your toes."

Sakura turned herself square to the glass and forced herself to look critically. "I look like my stepmother," she said finally.

"You don't!"

"I look as if I'm trying to be young. Virginal."

"Well, but you—" Riku stopped. "You're no old biddy, miss! You should be—"

"No," Sakura said flatly. "I look as if I'm past my first blush, which I am. I don't even mind that, but I don't want to look as if I'm pretending. Do you see what I mean, Riku? The way my stepmother pretends to be thirty."

"You make yourself sound haggish!" Riku protested. "You've no more than what, twenty years?"

"Twenty-three," Sakura said. "And I'm tired. I suppose there are some twenty-three-year-olds who would carry this off with assurance, but I'm not one of them. I look…wrong."

"Well, miss," Riku said, "one of the seamstresses spent four hours altering that gown, and I shaped the wax inserts myself, and that's what you're wearing."

Sakura gave her a swift hug. "I'm being a beast, and I apologize. It doesn't matter anyway, does it? I just need to smile at the prince, so that he will approve Hinata's wedding."

"And go to the ball," Riku said. "I brought three ball gowns, but I hadn't yet—"

We'll discuss that when the time comes," Sakura said firmly. She'd already made up her mind there would be no wax breasts at the ball. But why give Riku sleepless night worrying over it?

* * *

"I saw Kiba's Golden Fleece this afternoon," Sasuke told Naruto just before the evening meal, "and we can forget the idea of trading my Russian fleece for his."

"Really?" Naruto cocked an eyebrow. "After meeting your esteemed relative, I cannot help but think that the young lady may succumb to your charms, impoverished though they are."

Sasuke gave him a wry smile. "I'm not that desperate. My uncle nearly ran down their carriage because he thought he heard his dog barking. The yapping came from a pack of mongrels the size of fleas. And the Fleece was unattractive as her dogs: overdressed, overly bold with her eyes, and overly gaunt. I have minimal standards, but I have them."

"I like her," Naruto said thoughtfully. "And she has only three dogs."

"They're the kind that spin in circles and bite their own tails. Which is what I would do if I had to spend much time with her. She looked at me as if I were a disreputable banker. I think she didn't like my hair."

Naruto grinned. "Now we're getting somewhere. Disapproved of you, didn't she?"

"Soundly."

"Well, you'll have to get through dinner with her, because I've put her at your right and I'm not switching places at this point. I have you dining in the morning room and rest of the horde in the dining room proper. There are more arriving tomorrow, so I'll have to switch the great hall for meals."

"You don't mind all of this, do you?" Sasuke asked, looking at the boy he'd known his whole life, now grown to a man.

"I was made for it."

"Well, I'm glad I got a castle for you to muck about in."

"You should be glad for yourself," Naruto pointed out.

"I'm not," Sasuke said. "But I have a brotherly pride in the fact I spared Itachi the sight of you."

"Not very nice of the Grand Duke," Naruto said, pouring himself a small glass of brandy and tossing it back. "Throwing out his own brothers like that."

"Itachi would prefer to forget that our father left quite so many counterfeit coins with his own face."

"I don't look like Itachi," Naruto said, revolted.

"That's because he resembles my mother, whereas you and I take after the old devil himself."

Naruto's mother was a laundress, and Sasuke's a Grand Duchess, but the distinction never bothered either of them much. They were born mere days apart, and their father had promptly brought Naruto into the nursery to be raised with his legitimate children, not to mention a pack of other assorted half siblings.

"He was a ripe one," Naruto said. "I always liked our papa."

"Did we see him enough to judge?" Sasuke asked. "Here, give me some of that brandy."

Naruto handed over a glass. "We saw him the right amount, I'd say. Look what happened to Itachi, after he had to spend every day with him."

It was true. Sasuke and Naruto shared a bone-deep conviction that being the last on and an illegitimate son were far better fates than anything closer to the crown.

"I know why you're brooding over Kiba's fiancée," Naruto said. "It's because you're nervous about the arrival of your own."

"She's the look of a shrew," Sasuke said. "I'll admit, it gave me a doubt about Tenari."

"I know," Naruto said, "you want beddable and biddable."

"It's not as if you're looking for anything different," Sasuke said, stung by something in Naruto's voice.

"I'm not looking for a wife at all," Naruto said. "But if I were, I wouldn't want biddable."

"Why?

"I'm easily bored,"

"I wouldn't mind a bit of shrewishness," Sasuke said. "But the Fleece has no figure. I could tell, even though she was bundled in a shaggy traveling costume. She doesn't look as if she'd be fun."

"Wives aren't supposed to be fun," Naruto said, putting down his glass and straightening his neck cloth. "Time to go down and jockey everyone into proper places. The cook that we brought over is threatening to leave. Plus I had to hire three more downstairs maids. Thank God your bride is on the way; I don't think we can afford another such event."

"We've got enough money without her," Sasuke said, stung.

"More or less. I have a bad feeling that repairs to this castle won't come cheap."

After Naruto left, Sasuke sat for a while, staring at his desk. It was inestimably better in Konoha.

It was wonderful to own a castle. It really was.

Without really noticing, he pulled over the copy of _Ionian Antiquities_ that arrived two days before and started reading it. Again. Which was foolish because he had the whole issue memorized.

Of course he couldn't run off to the Land of Earth. He tried to wrench his mind back to the present. He had to go to his chambers and submit to Pole's ministrations, put on an evening coat, and greet his absurd nephew. He should be _happy_ to have an estate, and be able to house the zoo, and his uncle, aunts, illegitimate half brother, and the court jester…

If only he could stop dreaming of being in the heat of the Land of Earth, finding out for himself whether that dig truly held the remains of Dido's city. He had loved the story of the Land of Water as a schoolboy, caught by the determination of Aeneas sailing away to found Rome, leaving Dido behind, and then living with guilt after she threw herself on a funeral pyre.

He got up with a sign.

Time for dinner.

* * *

"We're eating with the family," Kiba said nervously.

"Do you know anything of the prince's entourage?"

But Kiba knew nothing of his mother's family and had never, it seemed, bothered to inquire.

The meal was served in a delightful room that, although Naruto referred to it as the "small morning room," was bigger than any single chamber at Haruno House.

The prince himself sat at the head of the table, of course. He was wearing a midnight blue evening coat over a violet waistcoat with gold buttons. In fact, her wig and his waistcoat would go very well together.

All in all, he looked magnificent and outrageously expensive. And bored.

She wouldn't have minded watching him from afar, but in fact, Sakura was rather horrified to find herself seated at the prince's right hand. She sat down in a haze of embarrassment, acutely conscious of her diamond necklace and diamond encrusted comb. She was tatted up like the daughter of a rich chit, thrusting herself into company in the hopes of a wealthy husband.

Which, she reminded herself, I am not. My father was the younger son of an earl. An _earl._ And never mind the fact that her father died without leaving her a dowry, or that her father married a woman of ill repute or that…

Or all the other ways in which her father had disappointed her. Blood is blood. I am an earl's granddaughter, she told herself.

With that, she raised her chin and straightened her shoulders. The prince was talking to a stout lady on his left, who was discoursing with deep earnestness on…something. Sakura listened hard, only to realize that the lady was speaking German, and he was responding in French. The gentleman to her right was occupied, so she nibbled her fish and listened to the prince's French replies.

The lady said something; the prince characterized her comment as a wild guess. The lady replied; the prince broke into German, so Sakura watched him under her eyelashes, since she couldn't understand enough to eavesdrop.

The first thing one noticed about him was that he was a prince. That was stamped on his face. She couldn't call it simple arrogance, though he was certainly arrogant enough, she thought, cataloguing the harsh line of his jaw.

She thought it had more to do with the way that he looked so easily commanding, as if he'd never seen anything in the world that he couldn't have for the asking. She considered it for a moment. A prince would never have done any of the things she had found herself doing in the past years. The time she'd helped with the birth of a calf came to mind as a particularly unpleasant chore.

A prince would not have three small dogs locked up in her chamber at this very moment.

A prince…

She took another bite of fish.

"What are you thinking about?"

His voice was like velvet, accented and deep.

"I am contemplating the fish," Sakura told him dishonestly.

And he knew it. There was a devil in those eyes, and they registered her fib. "I would guess," said he, "that you are thinking about me."

Everything in her rose up in protest at his effrontery, at the nerve of him saying such a thing.

"If it will make you happy," she said sweetly, " I was indeed."

"Now you sound like my majordomo."

"Ah, Naruto is Japanese, is he?"

That caught his interest. "As it happens, Naruto grew up with me and I've known him my whole life. But what would it mean if he were Japanese?"

Sakura shrugged. "We never ask people if they are thinking of us."

"Why not? Since you are unable to inquire, I was thinking of you."

"Really." Sakura gave the word all the coolness with which she addressed the baker after he overcharged for loaves of bread.

"Your wig," he said, with another one of those wicked, sideway smiles. "I've never seen a purple wig before."

"You must not often travel to Konoha," She told him. "Or Suna. Tinted wigs are all the fashion."

"I think I would prefer you without the wig."

Sakura told herself to be quiet, but she simply couldn't. "I can't imagine why you think that your preferences are of any interest when it comes to my hairstyle. That would be as odd as you assuming that I have interest in _your_ hair."

"Do you?"

The nerve of the man knew no bounds! Sakura felt all the irritation of the dispossessed. Just because he was a prince, he apparently assumed that everyone was fascinated by him.

"No," she said flatly. "Your hair is just—hair." She glanced at it. "Rather unkempt and slightly long, but one must make allowances for a man who clearly has no interest in fashion, and does not travel to Suna."

He laughed, and even his laugh had a slightly exotic sound, like his accent. "I had the impression on our first meeting that you disapproved of it. Having exhausted the subject of our respective hair, Miss Haruno, may I inquire how you are finding the resident here?"

"It seems quite lovely," Sakura said. And then, before she stopped herself, she asked, "How is it different from your home?"

Of course, he smiled. She's done the expected and turned the conversation to himself. She let a shadow of contempt steal into her eyes, though she doubted he would even catch it. Men like that didn't recognize scorn directed toward themselves.

"It's much greener here," he said. "It occurred to me while I was out riding that Konoha's countryside is the opposite of the people here, really.

"How so?" Someone had taken her fish while she wasn't looking and replaced it with another plate, which made her suspect that this was one of those dinners she had only read about, with twenty-four removes, and fifteen sweet things to finish. A royal table indeed.

"The Konoha people are so restrained in their fertility," he said, smiling at her. "Whereas the plants are all bursting with reproductive fervor."

Sakura's mouth fell open. "You—you shouldn't speak of such things with me."

"What an instructive conversation this is for me. Apparently nature falls into the same category as hair: not to be discussed at mealtimes in Konoha."

"_Do_ you discuss fertility with young ladies where you live?" she asked, keeping her voice rather low in case the sturdy dowager across from her caught the question.

"Oh, all sorts of fertility," Sasuke said. "A court simply bubbles with passion, you know. Most of it of a very short nature, but all the more intense for its shortness. Though not my brother's court, at the moment.

Despite herself, Sakura was fascinated. "Why on earth not? Has the Grand Duke suppressed his court somehow? You seem so—" She caught herself once again. It wasn't for her to characterized men of his stripe.

"How I'd love to know what I seem to be. But fearing you will cut me off, I'll just say that last year my brother welcomed a desperate preacher to the court, and within a matter of a week or two, the man had convinced most of the court to give up any frolicking not approved by the church."

"I suppose you were the exception," she said. And then realized she'd given him an opportunity to talk about himself _again_. It must be a gift given to princes: to draw all conversation into their own orbit.

"I turned out to be impervious to the man's rhetoric," he said grinning. "It was rather unfortunate, particularly when it became clear that my brother Itachi thought that the man's ideas were, shall we say, divinely inspired."

"What precisely did the priest recommend in place of frolicking?"

"He was particularly disturbed by what he called 'smock treason,' which was essentially anything that women and men might choose to do together. So he established a board in the drawing room with a sort of point system. The reward, naturally enough, was life everlasting."

Sakura thought about that as she ate her pork. "I've heard rhetoric of that sort from the pulpit."

"Yes, but priests tend to be so vague…a reference here or there to Pearly Gates and perhaps clouds. The priest had the courage of his convictions; his promises were quite explicit. Furthermore, his point system allowed one to earn little rewards for memorizing parts of the Bible.

"And those awards would be?"

"The right to wear robes of spun silver rather than plain white was a particular favorite among the ladies."

"I'm training my dogs with a system quite like that," Sakura said. "Of course I'm using cheese instead of heaven as the ultimate reward, but for them, it's likely the same thing."

"Well, that's probably why I was such a failure. I dislike cheese."

Back to himself, Sakura thought. She ate another bite rather than return to his favorite subject.

"Aren't you curious about my particular failures?" he persisted.

"I haven't got all night," she said favoring him with a smile. "If you wouldn't mind terribly, I'd rather hear more about your brother's court. Did everyone eagerly submit to the system?"

"They tried, after Itachi indicated a keen interest. That's the nature of a court."

"Does your court operate on the same principle?"

"Mine? I don't have a court."

She looked around. "Tall stone walls, and tapestries that must go back to the days of Queen Elle herself. Lovely courtyards. Loads of servants. Why, I do believe I'm in a castle!" Considering her point made, she smiled at the footman standing to her right. "Yes, I am finished with this pork, thank you."

"A castle is not the same thing as a court," the prince said.

"Dear me, _Your Highness_," she said sweetly. "Of course you're right, _Your Highness_." It was actually quite fun to see his jaw go a little rigid. The poor prince…obviously so used to people kissing his toes that he couldn't even be playful.

"A court serves a useful purpose," he pointed out. "The king or grand duke, as in my brother's case, rules his lands. I rule no one, Miss Haruno. Therefore, this is no court."

"Then you are doubly lucky. You needn't worry at all about whether you are useful or not," she replied.

"I suppose you would say that I am not?"

"You yourself said that you were a prince without subjects. Of course you are not useful, but that is hardly your failure. It's a matter of birth, and your birth, Your Highness, means that you need never be useful. Or question the market value of anything, which I would consider an even better inheritance."

"You believe a prince is someone who knows the price of nothing?" There was something in his smile, something a little dark and mocking that made Sakura suddenly wonder if she was over her head, being too clever.

"I expect," she said more delicately, "that you know the value of a great many things, if not their prices."

He stared at her for a moment, and then leaned just a trifled closer. "I did hear somewhat that the price of a woman, my dear Miss Haruno, is above that of rubies. Or was that the price of a _good _woman? How unfortunate that the priest is not here to settle the question."

"It was indeed a good woman," she told him.

The prince smiled at her, the calculated, tigerish smile that he probably used to seduce wayward ladies. "And are you a good woman?"

She returned the favor, giving him the gentle smile one gives to a deluded infant. And in case he didn't entirely understand, she patted his arm. "If you don't mind a word of advice, one never asks a lady to set her own price. If you to ask, the answer will always be more than you can afford."

The elderly man on her right turned his head at that moment. "Do tell me more about your war museum," Sakura said to him. "I've always thought that milk bottles were remarkably versatile. No, no, you're not interrupting anything. His Highness and I are boring each other silly."

* * *

Sasuke felt like laughing aloud as he blinked at the back of Miss Haruno's head. It served him right for jumping to the conclusion that all women wanted to be princesses. Or that any Konohawoman would like him simply because he _was_ a prince.

The woman had decided within seconds that he was a self-important ass. He'd seen it in her eyes, in the way she looked down her straight little nose.

Perhaps her nose was a little too long. Wasn't Kiba's fiancée supposed to be a raving beauty? He didn't think she was. There were dark blue shadows under her eyes, for one thing. Beauties were supposed to have a glowing skin the color of peach blossoms.

A lady of the court would have plucked her eyebrows to high, airy peaks…her slashed over her eyes, giving them punctuation. Rather extraordinary eyes, he had to say. They suited that foolish purple wig of hers.

Another question: What color was her hair under that wig? Perhaps she had one of those short cuts that he hated, but could quite imagine on her. It would highlight her cheekbones and—

He realized his aunt was clearing her throat ominously. What on earth was he doing? Likely Naruto was right, and he was obsessing over his nephew's betrothed simply out of dread of his own.

Tenari probably had a perfect short nose. And sweet eyes that would look at him with approval.

The thought came into his head, willy-nilly: Miss Haruno was the epitome of _beddable_.

But biddable?

He turned to his aunt with a lavish smile.

Never.

* * *

"Do you truly plan to go to bed?" Kiba inquired, when the party had finally moved to a drawing room. "I know that you haven't been out much, but it's outrageously early."

_Not been out much_ was a nice way of summing up Sakura's life in Masako's house. "You stay here," she told him. "The less I'm in company, the better. Apparently a Mr. Shikamaru met Hinata last spring. We were lucky that he wasn't offended when I accidently snubbed him a minute ago."

Kiba shrugged. "You should smile at everyone, just to be sure. The important thing is that the prince seems reasonably pleased with you. Who would have thought that so many people would be here? Lord Haku just told me that the whole of Konoha is dying of curiosity about my uncle."

The way he said _my uncle_ was entirely different now that he'd met the man in question. Sakura had the definite impression that Kiba would be dining out for years to come on his relationship to royalty.

"I'll see you tomorrow morning," she told him, turning toward the door of the drawing room. The room was thronged now, and the air filled with clamor of fifteen simultaneous conversations. Sakura was almost at the door when an extraordinary woman blocked her path.

She was probably forty years old, stunning in an opulent, deluxe sort of way. Unlike most of the women in the room, she hadn't shorn her hair; instead, she piled it on top of her head and then powdered it strawberry color. It clashed madly with her golden brown eyes, but, somehow, the effect was marvelous.

"You!" She said.

Sakura was trying to slide sideways, but at this command she stopped.

"I know you."

She could hardly say, "You must know my sister," so she plastered on a rather mad smile and said, "Oh! Of course, how are you?"

"Not know you that way," the woman said impatiently, waving a jeweled fan in the air. "Now who are you? Who are you?"

Sakura curtsied, "I'm Miss—"

"Of course! You're the spitting image of Hino. Devil's spawn that he was." But she said it affectionately. "You've his nose and his eyes."

"You knew my father," Sakura said, stammering a bit.

"_Quite_ well," the woman said, grinning. It was the sort of grin one didn't expect from a lady so obviously well-born. "And your name is Sakura. How do I know that, you might ask?"

Sakura suddenly realized with a pulse of alarm that anyone might overhear the conversation. "Actually—" she began, but was interrupted.

"Because I'm your godmother, that's why! My goodness, it's been forever. Appalling how the years go by. You were just a wee thing last I saw you, all plump cheeks and big ears." She peered closer. "Look at you now. Just like your father, though that wig does nothing for you darling, if you don't mind my saying so. You're lucky enough to have his eyes; for Goodness sake don't pair them with a purple wig."

Sakura felt a little flush rising up her neck, but her godmother—her godmother?—wasn't done surveying her. "And that padding in front isn't doing you any favors either. There's too much of it. It looks like you've got two pudding bags suspended from your neck."

The flush was up to her ears. "I'm just retiring for the night," Sakura said, dropping her curtsy. "If you'll forgive me."

"Offended you, have I? You're looking a bit feverish. Now that was one thing that Hino had control of: his temper. Didn't control anything else, but I never saw him blow his dickey, even when he was three sheets to the wind."

Sakura blinked. _Blow his—_

"Offended you again," her godmother said with satisfaction. "Come along, then. We'll go to my chambers. The butler put me one of the towers, and it's utterly heavenly. Like being stuck in the clouds expect for the pigeons crapping on the windows."

"But—I don't—what is your name?" Sakura finally asked.

She raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. "Didn't your father ever tell you about me?"

"I'm afraid he died before he had a chance."

"The old sod," she said. "He swore that he'd tell you all about me. I'll give you the story, but not here. This castle is crammed with people longing for gossip and making it up as fast as they can. No need to feed the blaze."

Sakura held her ground. "And you are?"

"Lady Tsunade. Jaraiya, my husband, is over there getting drunk with the Prince of Wiitersburg. Poor Jaraiya simply can't bear to let a glass of brandy pass him by." She reached out and took a hold of Sakura's wrist. "That's enough of introduction; let's go."

She towed Sakura up the stairs, through corridors, up more stairs, and finally into her chamber, pushed her on the bed, and plucked off her wig. "You're a beauty, then, aren't you?"

Sakura felt as if a whirlwind had come out of nowhere, picked her up, and deposited her in the tower room. "Did you know my father well?"

"I almost married him," Lady Tsunade said promptly. "Except that he never asked me. I still remember meeting your father for the first time. It was at the Grand Theater."

"Was my mother there?" Sakura asked, feeling a surge of loyalty for her poor mother, who appeared to have been overlooked not only by Masako, but by Lady Tsunade as well.

"No, no, he hadn't met her yet."

"Oh," Sakura said, feeling better.

"We had the most delicious flirtation," Lady Tsunade said, looking a bit dreamy. "But your mother already had her eye on him, and within a few months her father—your grandfather—had reeled Hino in like a half-dead trout. Hino was fantastically poor," she explained.

"Oh," Sakura said again.

"Luckily for him, he was a handsome beast of a man, all that dark buttery hair and your green eyes, then the cheekbones…if things had been different, I would have married him in a moment."

Sakura nodded.

"of course, he would have been unfaithful to me and then I'd have shot him in a private area," Lady Tsunade said thoughtfully, "so it's just as well."

A giggle escaped Sakura's mouth. It was wrong to laugh, just wrong, when she was listening to tales of her father's rampant infidelity.

"He just couldn't help it. Some men are like that. I suppose you've met the prince? He's one of them. No woman will be able to keep that man at home, and though they're delightful to play with, it's best to avoid them. I've been married three times, darling, so I know."

"So my godfather must be dead," Sakura said. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"It was a long time ago," Lady Tsunade said. Then she gave Sakura a lopsided, secret smile. "Your father and I—he—"

"You had an _affair_," Sakura said, resigned.

"Oh no. Perhaps it would have been better for both of us if we had. We were young and foolish when we met, which meant that it was all talk of love and roses, rather than beds. And Hino couldn't marry me because my dowry wasn't large enough."

The more she learned of her father, the less she liked what she heard.

"Classic Romeo and Juliet," Lady Tsunade said, "but without all the stabbing and poison, than you very much. Instead you father imply married your mother, and that was the end of it."

"Did you know her as well?"

Lady Tsunade sat down at the stool before her dressing table, so Sakura couldn't see her eyes. "Your mother hadn't been strong enough to have a proper season, so I didn't meet her until your baptism."

"I have wondered how my mother and father managed to meet, since my mother was so frequently abed," Sakura admitted.

"Oh, they didn't. She saw him passing in Wave Park, and inquired about his name. From there, her father took over."

Sakura felt even more depressed at that revelation.

"And of course I married as well," Lady Tsunade said, swinging around to face Sakura again. "You mustn't think it was all sackcloth and ashes. I fell in love with my husband and I daresay Hino did the same with your mother. Over the years we saw each other occasionally. _Not_, I hasten to add, in any sort of clandestine fashion."

Sakura nodded.

"A few years later, I found myself dancing with him at Cronohall. I had just lost another child; I was never able to carry a babe. I wept all over his shoulder."

Sakura would have patted her hand, but somehow Lady Tsunade was not the sort of woman one consoled in that fashion.

"Next thing I knew, Hino had wrangled it so that I and my first husband were your godparents."

Sakura smiled weakly.

"I wanted to kill him. Oh, we did the ceremony, of course. How could we not? But I was so angry at his blindness, thinking that godmothering his child with your mother would somehow make up for my own lost children. His child of all people!"

"My father was not very perceptive," Sakura said, remembering how cheerfully he had told her that he was bringing home a stepmother, at a time when she was still grieving her mother's death. "But surely he was well-meaning?"

"Of course…but at the time I was so heartsick about losing another babe that I couldn't see it. I'm afraid that I put you out of my mind after the ceremony. In fact, in a fit of pure spleen, I pretended you didn't exist. But here you are!"

Which reminded Sakura. "I'm not actually here as myself," she confessed.

"Really?" Lady Tsunade glanced at her reflection and then powdered her nose. "I wish I weren't too. Sometimes I get so tired of Jaraiya. I'd love to be someone else, although if it meant I had to wear a purple wig, I might rethink it."

"The purple wig is part of it," Sakura said. "I'm here as my half sister, Hinata, who…" and she blurted out the whole story, largely because Lady Tsunade didn't look in the least sympathetic, but just kept nodding and saying things like "Hino, what a loose fish," in a tone that didn't seem judgmental, just definitive.

She neatly summed up the situation. "So at the moment you're playing Hinata, who's betrothed to a man name Kiba, who's dragged you here because he needs the prince's blessing for the wedding that has to happen because Hinata is as much of a light frigate as her mother."

"That makes her sound like a trollop," Sakura protested. "She's not, she's just in love."

"In love," Lady Tsunade said moodily. "For goodness sake, don't ever fall in love before you get married. It's just too messy and leads to appalling consequences. The only time I ever fell in love out of wedlock was with your papa, and that's because I couldn't help myself, though I fought it tooth and nail."

Sakura smiled. "I'm not planning to fall in love, Lady Tsunade."

"Forget this talk of love; it's all a pile of nonsense. I wish Jaraiya and I had been in Konoha for the season, rather than on the Continent. I would have met your trollopy relatives and demanded to know where my godmother was. At any rate, the real question is whom _you_ should marry. After you finish this little charade, of course."

Sakura felt a great easing in the area of her chest. There was something about Tsunade: She was all luxurious curves with a great expanse of white bosom, but her big brown eyes were steady. You could trust her.

"You aren't going to cry, are you?" Tsunade demanded, looking suspicious. "I can't abide tears."

"No," Sakura said.

"So whom do you want to marry, then?" I trust you're not planning to steal away your sister's Kiba. He doesn't sound like much of a bargain."

"I know just whom I'd like to marry," Sakura said promptly. "That is, I don't know precisely who, but I know the sort of man. Someone like my father, but not, if you see what I mean. He wasn't home much, and I'd prefer someone who likes the country. I love our house in the country. It's beautiful, and just the right size, big enough for lots of children."

"You want someone like your father but without the wandering eye," Tsunade said, going straight to the heart of it. "Hino had snug estate, thanks to your mother's dowry, but nothing-"

"It's just the right size for me," Sakura interrupted. "I don't want to marry an earl or anyone like that. Just a squire would be lovely. Or even a merchant who'd moved to the country."

"No goddaughter of mine is marrying a merchant," Tsunade stated. "For goodness sake, girl, you're the granddaughter of an early. And your mother was no country bumpkin for all that she couldn't get out of bed. She was a lady and so are you."

Sakura hadn't been a lady for years, not since her father died and Masako moved her into the attic. She felt her throat tighten. "I'm sorry," she said. "I am going to cry."

"Ah well, happened to the best of us," Tsunade said. She got up and went over to a little silver tray and poured out glasses of pale liqueur. "I cried buckets after your baptism. I was so convinced that you should have been my child, you see."

"You did?" Sakura mopped up her tears and tried to concentrate.

"After that I turned my back on Hino and never spoke to him again." She added, a little gruffly, "I didn't stop thinking of him, though."

"I'm sorry," Sakura said. "He really didn't have a very good moral character, as it turns out. I'd rather my husband was quite different in that respect."

"Here, drink your liqueur," Tsunade said, tossing back her drink. "I carry it with me everywhere because it's the only kind of drink that Jaraiya doesn't like, so there's a chance I'll still have some tomorrow."

Sakura sipped hers. It tasted like lemons, fierce and cruel to the nose.

"Limoncello," Tsunade said with satisfaction.

Sakura sipped her limoncello again and found herself smiling at her godmother. She was so funny and frank. "I don't have a dowry," she said. "That is, I have a small nest egg left to me by my mother, but nothing much."

"That doesn't sound right, Sakura. What's happened to you? I've worked out that you must be at least twenty-three, so why aren't you settled with two or three squalling brats on your knee? Your wishes are modest enough, and you're beautiful."

"Sakura finished her glass. "As I told you, my father married again, but he died shortly thereafter. And he left all his money to his new wife."

"That's just the kind of stupid thing that Hino would have done. Probably neglected to make a will. But his estate was beans…nothing compared to your mother's."

Sakura's mouth fell open. "What?"

Tsunade had a sleepy kind of smile, but her eyes shone. "He never told you?"

"Told me what?"

"your mother was an heiress. Your grandfather wanted her married, so he bought your father, and he…well, I'm afraid that Hino wanted her guineas."

"He must've spent it," Sakura said, deflating. "Because I have only a very small income from my mother. If he didn't spend it, my stepmother would have."

"I don't know," Tsunade said dubiously. "How would she get her hands on that money? I vaguely remember Hino complaining that he couldn't touch it. I'll have Jaraiya look into it."

"Even if Masako took it illicitly," Sakura said, "I couldn't do anything about it. I don't like her, but—"

"Well," Tsunade said interrupting, "It doesn't matter."

"It doesn't?"

"Your father gave you to me, Sakura. And though I was ungrateful for the present at the time, I feel differently now." Tsunade reached forward and put a hand on Sakura's cheek, for just a second. "I'd like to try being a proper godmother to you, of you wouldn't mind."

Sakura's vision blurred again. "I would be most honored."

"Good!" She said, standing up. "Now you must run off because I've learned that if I don't have my beauty sleep I'm a total beast in the morning. There's nothing wrong with that, but since Jaraiya is downstairs drinking brandy, it would make two of us. And that's two more than this castle can bear."

Sakura stood up too and then hesitated for a second.

"Come here," Tsunade said gruffly, and held out her arms.

For the first time since her mother died, Sakura felt safe.

* * *

When Sakura got back to her room she eyes the cord that would summon Riku to prepare her for bed, but she didn't feel sleepy in the least.

Images were jumping through her mind, memories of her mother's wistful face at the sight of her father, of her father's polite courtesy toward his wife. Could it be that he was still in love with Tsunade? Or did he then fall in love with Masako?

Her heart felt wrenched between her mother's sadness and Tsunade's, between the romance of young love and irritation at her father for allowing himself to be bought.

Finally she decided to take the dogs out for a walk. She calmed Caesar by fixing her eye on him, and then gave him a cheese bit once he stopped barking.

The great drawing room was still blazing with light as she entered the inner courtyard, the dogs pulling ahead. She walked the other directions, stumbling across the cobblestones.

The outer courtyard was only dimply lit, but there seemed to be a set of large cages lined up against the wall. The dogs were straining at their leashes, so she stopped walking until they calmed down. Then she gave them a round of cheese, and this time they stayed quite politely by her side.

"If you're good," she told them, "I'll bring you into company tomorrow." She had to do that in any case; Hinata had carried those dogs to be an essential part of her disguise.

They all looked up at her the moment she spoke. She was getting a bit fond of them, especially of Fusion. He was afraid of everything from a random fly to a dark shadow, but bravery is not a required virtue for dogs. Plus he was very nice to sleep with.

The cages were frightfully large. Light from the single lantern hanging on a hook on the wall didn't reach past the bars. The dogs stopped short of the first cage, sniffing intently at the dark enclosure. Sakura peered inside, but couldn't see anything. There was rather a fierce smell though.

"What on earth would a prince keep in a cage?" She said out loud. Caesar gave a little woof in reply, but kept his eyes focused on the cage. Fusion was huddled against her leg, showing no inclination to learn more. She reached up toward the lantern—when a big hand reached over hers and took it first.

"Who's—oh!" She swallowed the word in a squeak. It was the prince himself, looking even more sulky and brooding in the wavering light from the lantern. His unruly hair was falling out if its ribbon and his mouth look haughty. Thin-lipped, she told herself, raising her chin. Everyone knew royals were inbred.

"I keep a lion in this cage," Sasuke said, matter-of-factly. "There's an elephant over there, with her companion, a monkey. And there was an ostrich, but we moved her into the orchards along with some Hima goats." He raised the lantern, and Sakura saw a slumbering form in the back of the cage. As the light fell on it, one contemptuous eye opened, and the lion yawned, showing off rows of efficient-looking teeth.

"_Teeth_ isn't really the right word for those," she observed.

"Fangs," Sasuke said with satisfaction.

The lion closed his eyes again, as if his observers were too boring to contemplate.

"You better keep those dogs out of the cage," the prince remarked. "The lion threw up all day yesterday after eating my uncle's dog."

"Not the pickle-eating dog?" Sakura said. "What a shame. Your uncle told me that he is quite convinced his dog will return soon."

"Would you, given that diet?"

"It wouldn't make me leap into a lion's cage," she pointed out.

"I doubt anything would make you so reckless."

That was the kind of comment she hated because it implied something about her personality—but what exactly? She certainly wasn't going to ask Prince High-and-Mighty himself for elucidation, so she just walked off in the direction of the elephant's cage.

He followed her with the lantern. "The elephant's name is Lyssa. She's too big for the cage, so we're making her a pen in the orchard. But if we put her out there, her monkey might run away."

The monkey was sleeping at the elephant's feet, one long arm curved around her leg. "I doubt it. It looks like love to me."

"If that's love I want nothing to do with it, " Sasuke said, his eyes laughed.

"I know just what you mean," Sakura said, a giggle escaping her. "You'll never catch me sleeping at someone's feet."

"And here I thought you were desperately captivated with my nephew."

"Of course I am," Sakura said, sounding insincere even to her own ears.

"Ha," the prince said. "I wouldn't want to stake out poor Kiba in the orchard and hope his presence would keep you in bounds."

He was rather terrifying attractive, when he wasn't smoldering in a princely way, but laughing instead. "Kibi would never allow himself to be put out to pasture," she said, trying to think of a magnificent set-down.

But he cut her off. "Shikamaru says you've been ill. What happened?"

For a moment Sakura's mind boggled and then she remembered Hinata's sweetly plump face and her own angular cheekbones. "Nothing much," she said.

"Other than a brush with death?"

"I hardly look _that_ bad," she said sharply.

He tipped up her chin and studied it. "Shadowed eyes, thin face, something exhausted about you. You don't look good."

She narrowed her eyes. "You're terribly impolite for royalty. I would have expected that you were trained to be diplomatic in every circumstance."

He shrugged. "It must be your beauty. It brought out that rare moment of truth in me."

"Just my luck," she said crossly. "You bolt from diplomacy just in time to tell me how dreadful I look."

He put a finger on her lips and she stilled. It was as if she suddenly saw him again for the first time: all that restless energy and gleaming sensuality bound up with huge shoulders and a sulky mouth. "You, Miss Haruno, are talking rot and you know it. I can only imagine what you looked like with a little more meat on your bones, but you're exquisite."

His fingers dropped away and she felt her mouth curling into a smile, like a fussy child soothed with boiled sweet. He was leaning against the cage now, looking pleased with himself, as if he'd taken care of yet another little problem.

"What are you doing out here in the dark?" she asked. "Don't you want to return and be fawned over some more? Life is so short."

There was a moment of silence after she issued this appallingly rude statement. Then he said, rather slowly, "I actually came out to see if the lion was still vomiting up bits of pickled dog. And the Konohans do not fawn, in my experience."

He turned away to hang up the lantern, so hi voice came from a patch of darkness. "How did you meet my nephew, of you don't mind my asking?"

"We met in a cathedral and fell in love immediately," Sakura said, after a second's pause in which she wracked her brains to remember the story.

"In love," the prince said. "With Kiba. Whom you affectionately refer to as Kibi, I noticed. Rather like some sort of pond life."

"Yes," Sakura stated. "In love."

"If you knew what love is, you certainly wouldn't be marrying my nephew."

'I love Kibi," she repeated.

"You'll eat him alive by the time he's twenty," he said unemotionally. "You know he's younger than you are, don't you? Still wet behind the ears, the poor little viscount. Though perhaps you like it that way."

"You are a horrible man," Sakura said, shading her voice with just the right amount of cool disdain. "I am glad for your sake that your betrothal was a matter of imperial alliances, because I doubt you could catch a wife on your own." Which was a rotten lie, because she couldn't think of a woman who wouldn't slaver to marry him. Except herself, of course.

She walked off, then turned and said acidly, "Your Highness."

There was a flash of movement and an arm wrapped around her waist from behind. He was hot and incredibly large and she could feel his heart beating. He smelled wonderful, like a bonfire at night, smoky and wild and out of bounds.

"Say that again," he said, his breath touching her neck.

"Let me go," she said steadily, fighting the impulse of her body to relax back against him, turn her chin, invite—invite a kiss? She'd never been kissed, and she didn't intend her first kiss to be given by an arrogant and unruly prince who was irritated because she didn't fawn over him.

His voice was a smoldering, smoky demand. "I just want a taste of you, Miss Hinata Haruno." His lips touched her neck, and the feeling of it shivered down her spine.

With one swift gesture, she raised her pointed, jeweled heel and slammed it down in the spot where she guessed his foot had to be, twisting and wrenching away from him.

They had moved close enough to the walls that she could see him in the light from the windows. "You are an ass," she said through clenched teeth.

"Did you have to be quite so violent? These are my favorite shoes," he said. "And I don't think I'm _always_ an ass."

She backed up a few more steps. "While I might pity you for your faulty thought processes, you have so many other attributed that command pity that I won't bother."

"If I am an ass," he said, "what does that make you?"

"Uninterested," she said flatly.

"A snappish little shrewd," he retorted.

His eyes were narrowed, and for the first time since she met him, he looked angry. Against all odds, the look of him made her laugh. "You look like a grocer whose daily allotment of potatoes didn't arrive."

"Potatoes," he said. "You compared yourself to a potato?"

"Look, you just can't go and kiss ladies whenever you feel the urge," she said. "Here, Caesar! Come back." Caesar had apparently realized the lion was asleep and had started sniffing at the cage bars again. "I don't want you to turn into the lion's supper."

"Why can't I?"

A mop of his dark bangs had fallen over his eyes and she had to admit that he looked like the sort of man who _could_ kiss anyone he pleased. He looked explosive and utterly sensual and dangerous. Tsunade's assessment of him came back into her mind at that very moment: He was just like her father, the sort of man who would never be faithful.

Her smile turned bittersweet. "Because you're not for every woman," she explained, trying to put it kindly. "For goodness sake, are all princes like this?"

He walked closer and she eyed him, but he didn't look lustful as much as curious.

"You can't tell me that a woman simply enters a royal court from wherever you came from and expects to be kissed by any prince who happened upon her."

"Of course not!"

"Well, why on earth would you think I am available for kissing?"

"To be honest, because you're here in the dark," he said.

It was a fair point. "I'm only here because of my dogs," she said defensively.

"You spoke to me for quite a while. You have no chaperone with you. Naruto tells me that you arrived with a single maid to attend you."

Damn Masako for throwing their governess out of the house. "I would have brought my maid downstairs with me but she has indigestion," Sakura said.

"I think you forgot to summon her. I assure you that young ladies in the court never forget their maids, and they are never alone," he stated. "They travel together, like flocks of starlings. Or packs of dogs," he added, as Caesar growled at the lion.

She could hardly explain that her governess had been dismissed the day after her father died, and consequently she had never learned to travel in flock. "I should have been accompanied by my maid," she said, "but you mustn't assume that every woman wishes to kiss you."

He stared at her.

"This is a ridiculous conversation," she muttered. "Caesar, come here! It's time to go." The dog stayed at the cage, growling.

"Absurd animal," she said, scooping him up.

"I thought," Sasuke said, "that I might seduce you."

She turned around, mouth open. "You can't go about trying to seduce young ladies!" she squeaked.

"If I weren't betrothed already, I would consider marrying you."

Sakura snorted. "You might consider it the way you would consider a case of the measles. No, you wouldn't, and you shouldn't imply that you would."

Sasuke took one step and looked down at her with his dark midnight eyes. Some dim part of her mind registered that his lips weren't thin at all. Quite the opposite, really.

"I'm a shrew, remember?" She told him. "Look, what are you doing? You're a prince. This is remarkably improper conversation, and you shouldn't try to do it with other young ladies or you _will_ be forced to marry someone, likely at the end of a dueling pistol held by her father."

"Your father?" he asked, still staring down at her.

"My father is dead," she said, feeling a queer thump of her heart. "But you and he had a great deal in common, and I'm afraid that that has given me immunity to your particular charms."

"Not to mention, you're in love with Kiba. Did your father want you to marry him?"

"My father died years ago. He doesn't belong in this conversation. Anyway, you're quite mad. You couldn't marry me, and it's unkind of you to raise my expectations. What if I believed you? You are marrying a Russian princess, by all accounts."

"It's true that I need to marry an heiress," Sasuke said casually. "You're one, by all accounts. I don't necessarily want someone well-connected. I just want someone rich." His eyes drifted over her bosom. "Beddable."

Sakura hoisted Caesar a little higher so the dog almost covered her wax breasts. "This is the most improper conversation I've ever had in my life," she observed.

"It must be your age that inspired my impropriety," he said. "I've had many improper conversations though not, I admit, with nubile maidens."

She felt that like a sting, though she didn't work out whether he was implying she was young or old. "Do you often confess your desire to marry a woman for her money, then?"

"Generally we speak of other desires."

"I can just imagine," she muttered. "This has been absolutely charming. Just so you know, I'm not available for marriage. And I'm not rich either." She buried the memory of Tsunade's belief in her mythical dowry. It was too fantastical for truth.

He cocked an eyebrow. "You're not? Does Kiba know that? Naruto seems to think you have a healthy inheritance."

"Absolutely," she said. "Kibi loves me anyway."

"Interesting. My nephew strikes me as the sort who would put adoration a strong second to monetary policy."

"Unlike you, who would apparently put it at the bottom of the list."

"As would you," he said cheerfully.

"Does this mean that I can walk my dogs without fear that you'll leap out at me from a dark corner?" she asked, putting Caesar back on the ground.

"One would certainly think so," Sasuke said. "But then…you're extraordinarily beautiful." And while Sakura was still registering that comment, he gathered her up in his arms in a businesslike fashion and lowered his head to hers.

And then he wasn't businesslike anymore. All that restless, wild energy she felt in him poured into his kiss, into a demand that she had no hope of denying. She thought kissing was about a brush of the lips, but this…this was about tasting and feeling. He felt like silk and fire.

He _tasted_ like fire. She leaned into it, opened her mouth, feeling a tremor go down her back again. He murmured something into her mouth, something hot and sweet. She dimly remembered that she meant give him a lesson, to teach him not kiss any lady he met.

She ought to give him a slap.

But then he might take his lips away, or his large warm hand from her waist, or…it was only innate self-preservation that saved her. His kiss had started out with a question, but it was quickly turning into a demand, and inexperienced though she was, her whole body was answering in the affirmative.

Yet one rather small, cool voice in her head reminded her exactly who she was, and whom she was kissing.

She pulled back; he resisted for one second, one glorious blazing second, and then it was over.

Her first thought was utterly irrelevant: that she'd never noticed how thick his eyelashes were. Her second was that she'd done nothing more than feed his absurd conceit, and now he would think that he was irresistible even to Konohawomen.

She opened her mouth to say something that ought to shrivel his self-esteem, but he spoke first.

"Oh damn," he said, and there was a kind of hoarse hunger in his voice that spoke of truth,  
"I wish you were my Russian princess."

And just like that, her irritation with his pompous princely self-drained out of her and she started gurgling with laughter.

"You're—" She stopped. Did she really want to compliment him, to add to his already monumental self-regard?

It was only fair.

She leaned forward and brushed her lips across his. "If money could buy kisses like that, I wish I were an heiress. I'd even go so far," she added, "as to wish myself a princess's pedigree."

His hands came up and cupped her face. "I have to taste you again," he said with a queer kind of groan in his voice.

They were thinking the same thing, she thought dazedly, about tasting—but then she _was_ tasting, and he tasted like dark honey and something smoother and wilder, something that made her tremble and—

And then he put her away.

"You are dangerous," she said slowly.

His smile told her that she'd said the wrong thing, fed that monumental self-conceit again.

"Princes," she said with a sigh. "I suppose you do have some usefulness after all."

That stung, and she noted it with satisfaction because her knees were trembling and her—her legs—

"No," he said, a bit harshly. "I have little utility, I assure you. Now, unless you wish to be caught and kissed by another stranger, Miss Haruno, I strongly suggest that you return to your room posthaste, and do not emerge again unchaperoned."


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning Sakura took the dogs down for a stroll, this time accompanied by Riku. It was just after dawn, but she was used to waking up early and couldn't seem to sleep in, even when Fusion whined and tried to hide under the covers. The moment her eyes opened she remembered the evening before—and that was that.

"Come on," she told them. "You three are going out without a leash. We'll visit the lion in daylight; if you don't behave, you'll be down his gullet, so keep that in mind."

The courtyard echoed emptily as she and Riku walked across the flagstones. Last night had been a warm, velvet, enclosure. This morning it looked hundreds of years old, chilly, and capable of existing far past their lifetimes. Sakura shivered and walked a little faster.

The lion was awake. He yawned at the sight of them and padded forward. She fell back a respectful step.

He was far shaggier than she would have thought. She had vague idea that lions were glossy, but this lion looked time-worn, like a battered hearth rug. He gave them a disgusted look and walked to the rear of the cage, turned around, and walked forward again, shaking his mane as if his head was too heavy.

"Oh, miss!" Riku squealed.

Caesar had pranced forward sniffing the bars. Sakura snapped her fingers and moved back, so she gave him some cheese.

"All the servants are talking about that lion," Riku said. "The beast has eaten half the household pets, they say. We'll be lucky to leave with all three dogs."

"I expect he'll get Caesar first," Sakura said ruthlessly.

The lion came to the bar and looked hungrily at the dogs, so she threw some cheese instead. He sniffed disdainfully but ate it up.

"That animal gives me the shivers," Riku said. "Just look at Fusion. He's scared to death. We'll visit the elephant. Come on, Fusion; let's get away from this nasty cat." She headed around the corner to the other cages, but Sakura stayed where she was, staring at the enclosed lion.

"Good morning, Miss Haruno," came a voice at her shoulder. She turned to find the prince's majordomo smiling at her.

"Good morning, Mr. Uzumaki," she said. "I do believe we're the only people awake in the whole castle."

"I came out to see how the lion's holding up. He seems better."

Naruto didn't seem to be in a hurry, so Sakura ventured a question. "Would you mind if I asked you some detailed about the castle?"

"Not at all," he said, leaning against the bars of the cage.

"I estimated last night that you must be taking in at least two hundred wax candles a week. So does the castle have its own chandler? I know you must have a baker, but what about all the sort of things one usually finds in a village, such as a smithy?"

Naruto wore beautiful attire with frogged buttons and a high collar. He looked precisely like the very best sort of servant, but just for a moment, his eyes twinkled at her and she felt…

Absurd. As if she knew him, or had at the least met him before.

"The castle does include its own chandlery," he replied. "But you've underestimated the candles, Miss Haruno. In a normal wee, I have more than three hundred burning throughout the castle, and we also employ lamps in some rooms. With the ball, of course, I've ordered quite a lot more to make sure that the candelabra are fully lit till dawn."

"Fascinating," Sakura said. "What about servants? How many are there, overall?"

He paused for a moment, obviously calculating. "I just hired four and let go one so, so with a net gain of three, we currently employ one hundred thirty-seven in and around the castle."

"Does most of the income come from rents?" she asked, before she thought. Then she colored. "I do apologize; that was a remarkably improper question."

He cocked an eyebrow. "The Konohans are more prudish than we are about matters of money. The castle is surrounded by farms, of course, and they bring in rents, which support the castle in a minimal fashion. The prince doesn't feel they are sufficient, given the number of people living here."

Sakura felt pink rising in her cheeks. "I certainly didn't mean to inquire about the prince's financial situation!"

"Why not?" he said, shrugging. "Prince Sasuke is singular in that he has a castle to oversee." Naruto's blond hair was tied back in a proper queue, but as he shrugged, part of it fell over his brow.

Then, as if a mirror appeared before her, she saw the prince's face—in Naruto. Cast in the same mold as it were. Twin sides of two coins.

Her mouth fell open.

The majordomo met her eyes and clearly diagnosed her stunned look. His sideways smile was a precise copy of his master's.

"Ump," Sakura said, recovering herself.

"Today we will have a picnic in the gardens behind the castle," Naruto said, without flicking an eyelash. "Several ladies have expressed an interest in seeing the rest of the zoo, which is housed behind the hedge maze. Punting on the lake can also be very enjoyable."

The lion had gone back to sleep. "Don't you think that this beast needs a bigger cage?" she asked. The realization that Naruto must be intimately related to the prince made him somehow easier to speak to.

"How much bigger would you advise?"

"Well, think about pig enclosures. You could put a large sow and all her piglets in a six-by-six enclosure, but I believe most farmers consider a larger space preferable. This lion has less space than a fallow pig. That can't be right."

She looked up at Naruto to find that he was blinking down at her in a puzzled sort of way. "I shouldn't know the size of sow's sty," she said, sighing.

"Who is to say what one should and shouldn't know?" Naruto murmured. "But I will admit that the few Konohan ladies I encountered during my time at Konoford appeared to find an extraordinary number of topics indelicate."

"Oh, were you at Konoford as well?" she asked. "Or were you there as the prince's attendant?"

"As myself," Naruto said cheerfully. "And myself attends the prince, so it worked out very well for both of us. I studied philosophy and he studied history and we both studied women. We were very young, you understand."

Sakura grinned at him. "Does philosophy help you in your current position?"

"You have no idea," Naruto said. "I resort to philosophical reasoning on a daily basis when things get sticky."

"Matters of precedence and such?"

"The prince's relatives," he said with some vehemence, "are an unruly lot. Did you meet Mr. Tachi last night?"

Sakura frowned. "Rather pale and a bit plumpy?"

"That's he. Mr. Tachi is a reader attached to one of His Highness's aunts. You might remember Princess Sakuya by her penchant for wearing plumes."

Sakura brought to mind a fierce-looking woman with a bosom like a plow. "How nice that she has someone to read to her," she said politely.

"Tachi reads palms. Or so he says," Naruto added with an elegant touch of doubt. "At any rate, he is being driven quite mad by Prince Madara, who demands that he read his palm over and over, searching for a better answer."

"The idea that one's palm might change moment to moment seems to invalidate the whole idea," Sakura observed.

"Mr. Tachi has already informed the prince that he will marry a dark-haired lady, and live to one hundred and twelve, and any number of other interesting fortunes, but none of them are good enough."

"So you call upon your philosophical training to manage the travails of you—" And caught herself up. Whether Prince Madara was indeed Naruto's relatives was none of her business.

"Exactly," he said smoothly. "Miss Haruno, may I point out what an extraordinary young lady you are?"

"Ah well," she said, and then, realizing that she really liked him, "royalty aren't the only ones who have oddly shaped families, you know."

He nodded, his eyes resting thoughtfully on her. At that moment, Riku came back around the corner.

"You must come and see the elephant, Miss Sakura," she cried, not noticing that she was using the wrong name. "She has the sweetest monkey clinging to her leg. I've never seen anything so darling in my life."

"The monkey is a castle favorite," Naruto commented.

Sakura glanced at him to see if he had caught Riku's mistake, but he showed no sign of it.

It turned out that Caesar, who showed proper caution around the lion, had no such sense when it came to the elephant. He rushed between the bars of the cage, yapping madly, trying to catch the monkey.

The elephant looked uneasy and began shifting back and forth.

"Elephants don't like mice, and that dog is not much bigger," Naruto pointed out, sounding entirely unconcerned. "She might stamp on him."

"Caesar!" Sakura cried. "Please come out of there!" She waved a piece of cheese desperately.

But Caesar was as dimwitted as he was brave, and he seemed to think the monkey's tail would drop into his mouth if he barked loudly enough.

Naruto sighed. "Excuse me, ladies." He pulled open a small box attached to the cage, took out a key, and unlocked the door. One step inside the cage and he scooped up Caesar.

"I'll have to keep him on a leash," Sakura said. "I'm afraid that he's quite fearless. He has no brains."

"None?"

Sakura shook her head. "Absolutely none that I can ascertain. It's like that sometimes."

Naruto raised an eyebrow.

She smiled at him, just as if she were at home, funning with Yamato. "He's male. I've noticed that sometimes the brains simply get left out of the package."

She and Riku left the courtyard to the sound of Naruto's laughter.

* * *

The picnic and punting took place in the late afternoon, in the gardens stretching behind the castle. The gardens were laid out very formally, stretching from the bottom of a cast flight of white marble steps. There was a hedge maze, and a lake with swans, and everything imaginable a self-respecting castle's garden should have, including an orchestra, scraping away on a marble terrace.

Sakura wore a blue-tinted wig to match her gown, a lovely tunic with overskirts in light blue, cut back to reveal two layers, one in a paler blue and another in cream. She had a little argument with Riku over the wax inserts, but her maid had insisted that the berry dress would be disgraced by Sakura's natural shape. Or, more to the point, by her lack of natural shape.

"They may melt, and then where would I be? What if I grow hot, and they change shape? What then?"

"Do not grow hot," Riku had said, with impeccable logic.

Kiba and Sakura strolled to the top of the long flight of stairs leading down to the garden and paused.

The orchestra was playing something delicious, a waltz perhaps…she'd heard of waltzes and their decadent influence on dancers. The music made her want to pick up her skirts and dance.

"Wonder how they keep those fountains going," Kiba said. Water was shooting into the air out of the mouths of great stone sea monsters.

"You might ask Mr. Uzumaki," Sakura suggested. "I find he's remarkably knowledgeable about the castle."

"I certainly will not have a conversation with a servant," Kiba said, appalled. "My Goodness! Sakura, remember that you're Hinata will you? My wife would never lower herself in such a manner."

"If you want to know something, why not ask?" retorted Sakura. "I do think that you're being a snob, Kibi. The prince won't be able to answer your question."

"As if I would ask _him_!" Kiba cried, insulted all over again.

Sakura sighed and began walking down the steps. There were more people in the gardens than she had seen in the drawing rooms yesterday; apparently guests were already arriving for the ball. "Don't leave me, Kibi," she told her sulky fiancé. "I'm quite likely to see people whom Hinata knows. I'll smile at everyone, but you must handle introductions."

Kiba took a quick look at her and said, "You look more Hinata today, which is lucky." Then suddenly aware of a crucial detail, "Where are the dogs?"

"I left them with Riku," she said. "I thought—"

"No, you must have them," Kiba said, snapping his fingers at a footman in a way that Sakura considered disgraceful. "Hinata takes them with her everywhere; they're her signature. Bring the dogs from Miss Haruno's chamber," he commanded the footman. "And be quick about it. We'll wait here."

The wait gave Sakura the opportunity to discover exactly where the prince was. He wasn't hard to find, as he was surrounded by a veritable flowerbed of young ladies, and wearing a costume of dull yellow silk. At least she knew in which direction not to go.

"Just look at that," Kiba said in an awed voice.

"What?" Sakura asked, pretending she had been examining the lake.

"Mr. Hyuuga's coat has five seams down the back, rather than three." He twitched his own sleeve.

"I find it remarkable that you are able to see such minute detail from here," Sakura said, and then, turning to the young footman, "Thank You! That was very kind of you." She gave each dog a stern look in turn. "Caesar, no barking. Coco, stay away from water. And Fusion…"

She paused and looked down at Fusion's silky little ears and sweet eyes. He looked so happy to see her. "Well, you're perfect as you are. Come on, then."

They all pranced down the steps together, Kiba in the lead, and she was so busy complimenting the dogs for not pulling on their leashes that she didn't realize that the prince had shaken off his hoard of admirers and was waiting to greet them at the bottom of the steps.

"Miss Haruno," he said solemnly, as if the previous night had never happened.

"Your Highness," said Sakura, dropping into a deep curtsy.

"Nephew," he said, turning to Kiba.

Kiba obviously wrestled with the question of what to say in response; he finally blurted out, "Your Highness, Uncle," and bowed so deeply that his nose likely brushed his breeches.

"I insist that you come with me for a turn on a punt," the prince said, raising Sakura's hand to his lips.

It really wasn't fair to the rest of mankind that a prince should have eyes like that. More accurately, it wasn't fair to womankind.

"Perhaps I will, at some point," she said, retrieving her hand.

"Now," he said, sweeping her across the lawn without another look at Kiba.

"What are you doing?" she hissed, trying to keep the dog's leashes from tangling with her skirts.

"Taking you out on the lake, of course."

Mere seconds later, they were on one end of a long boat the approximate shape of a green bean, with a footman punting them along from the other end.

"Kibi—that is, my darling fiancé—won't like this," she said, wondering if she could take off her gloves and trail her fingers in the water. It was so beautiful, clear and dark blue.

"Yes, take them off," the prince said, guessing her thought. "We're far enough out that no one will see."

"What on earth do you mean by taking me out in this boat?" she demanded, though she did pull off her right glove.

"Do you know what that group of women over there is talking about?" he said, jerking his chin toward the fluffy cloud of silks and satins in which she'd first spied him.

"No. Here—" She handed him Caesar's leash. "Can you take care of him? Fusion will be fine, and Coco is actually quite well-behaved, but I wouldn't put it past Caesar to topple in if he sees a fish."

"I dislike dogs," the prince said, looking disdainfully at Caesar's fluffy tail.

"So do I," she said cheerfully, and then remembered whom she was pretending to be. "Except for my own sweet doggies, of course."

"Those women are discussing the extraordinary way you've changed since they last saw you in Konoha, two months ago," the prince said, leaning back and regarding her with a wicked gleam in his eye. "By all accounts, you were _much_ more attractive a matter of a few months ago, rounded in all the right places, et cetera."

"How rude," Sakura said. "Very mean-spirited of them to be so critical after my illness. How kind of you to warn me, though."

"So who are you?" the prince said, leaning in.

"Look, I think I see a fish, right there!"

"You are not Miss Hinata Haruno." He reached out and took her hand, turning it over. His thumb slowly over her palm and her eyes rose to meet his. "Calluses. The darlings of the Society would not have calluses. Not even after an illness."

"Well," Sakura started, and stopped.

"Let me guess," the prince said, with the kind of tempting smile that really ought to be outlawed. "Naruto and I discussed it at length earlier this afternoon."

"Naruto?"

"My brother Naruto. He says you ratted to the fact that he's my brother."

"I may have surmised—" Sakura begun.

"I surmise the same," the prince said triumphantly. "In short, you are not Hinata Haruno. You are an illegitimate twig of the family, who for some unknown reason has replaced Hinata, thereby explaining many mysteries: your hands, your apathy toward both your dogs and my poor sod of a nephew, your lack of resemblance to the plump and powdery Hinata, and your knowledge of the sufficient area of a sow's sty."

"Plump and powdery?" Sakura repeated, desperately wondering what she should say. To protest her legitimate birth seemed rather foolish, under the circumstances.

"One of the sharpest-tongued of the young ladies expressed grief over the fact that a medic must have forced you to spend time in the sun, because you used to have the most beautiful skin."

"She was distracting you, in hope that you wouldn't notice her cloven hoof."

"Could be," the prince said, grinning madly.

"I can see you're finding this a great deal of fun," she said crossly.

"Well, you _are_ family," he said. "That is, once Kiba has married the undoubtedly delectable Hinata, you'll be part of my extended family."

"Won't that be lovely," Sakura said, scooping up a water lily. She stole a look at the footman standing in the punt's stern, but he seemed to be preoccupied with avoiding the other boats skewing recklessly across the lake. "Related to a prince. On my list of things to achieve in life, I assure you."

"Quite like the homeland, where, I assure you, half of the population is related to me on one side of the blanket or the other," the prince said. "So what's your name? Naruto thought it might be Sakura, but he wasn't sure."

So Naruto _had_ heard Riku's slip of the tongue. "Sakura Haruno," she admitted. "Though generally people call me Sakura."

"Sasuke," he said.

"Though generally people call you Your Highness," she pointed out, "and so shall I."

"No one can hear us out here." He leaned back looking rather happy, and she realized with a start that for the first time, he wasn't looking at her mockingly. "What happened to plump and powdery Hinata?"

"Caesar bit her," Sakura said.

He glanced down at Caesar, who was standing with his front paws on the side of the boat, watching the water keenly in case he saw a reason to attack it.

"He may look tame, but he has a wild side," she added.

"Shall I push him over?" Sasuke asked helpfully. "With all that hair, he would sink like stone. Though not as fast as that little one. Are those jewels glued to her coat?"

"Not real ones. They're glass."

Sasuke leaned over and examine Coco more closely. "Actually, they are star sapphires. Although as a prince, I may not know their _price_, I can tell you that the value of that dog, jewels included, is approximately the same as a small cottage on the outskirts of this estate."

Sakura looked down at Coco with some dismay. "No wonder she's so proud of herself."

"Yes, she's like one of those circus dancers who carry a dowry in her navel," Sasuke said. "Obviously I truly missed an experience when Hinata was unable to come. She and I would have so much to talk about."

"Do you decorate you dogs as well?"

"I have no dogs, but I'm willing to consider the lion as a substitute."

"Your lion is desperate for a larger cage," Sakura said, scowling at him.

"Dear me," the prince said lazily. "I'm afraid that we're attracting quite a bit of attention."

Sakura looked up to discover that the lake was now positively littered with boats, and most of them seemed to be filled with aristocrats craning their necks in the direction of the prince's punt. "Damn and blast," she muttered. She shook the water off her hand, but there was nowhere to dry it. "Do you have a handkerchief?" she asked.

"No," the prince said, looking amused.

"I suppose you have servants who carry around that sort of thing in case you sneeze," she said.

"You aren't carrying one either," he retorted.

"I don't have room; my purse is full of cheese."

"I thought you had an interesting smell! Most ladies smell rather Flowery."

"Whereas I smell of the dairy," she said, resigned.

Sakura couldn't dry her hand on the blue silk of her dress because it would spot. "Don't look," she told him, and hastily pulled up the blue silk, and the two layers of silk underneath, until she reached the delicate linen of her chemise.

He looked.

Of course he looked.

She felt his eyes and looked up. He had the oddest little smile.

"You shouldn't!" she said, twitching her skirts over her ankle.

He leaned forward. "I like your slippers."

They too were blue silk, with small heels, and quite irresistible.

"Thank you," she said sedately. She was fairly sure that a gentleman was not supposed to see a lady's ankles, but surely shoes were meant to be admired?

He picked up her hand, still ungloved, and raised it to his lips. His eyes glittered at her, a kind of wild invitation, a temptation. "Though not as much as your ankles. Ankles like that…"

"They're just ankles," she said.

"Yes, but you should never let a man see your ankles."

"I know that," she said, tugging at her hand. "I wasn't raise in a farm, you know."

His eyes were laughing now, but there was a sultry burn in them, a heat that made her stomach curl with…something. "You should never let a man see your ankles," he repeated, "because if they are as finely and beautiful knit as yours, it tells him a great deal." He turned her hand over and put her palm against his lips, for just a split second.

"About what?" she asked, unable to stop herself.

He leaned forward. "About the rest of a woman's body. The curve of an ankle talks of the curve of a waist, the curve of a woman's thigh, the slope of her back…other places as well." His eyes lingered on her bosom.

Before she could stop herself, a giggled escape from Sakura's mouth. She clapped a hand over her lips.

"You are laughing at my compliment?" His face was utterly unreadable.

"I'm so sorry," she said, but she couldn't help herself. "I suppose I am."

"Why?"

Sakura straightened her back, which made the wax that was propping up her real bosom jut forward.

He looked puzzled.

"Did you know that Kiba pads his chest? Do _you_?" She eyed his coat and realized that he didn't. His chest was twice as large as Kiba's, but it was pure muscle.

"No."

"Kiba also has little pads sewn into the thighs of his breeches," she said patiently.

"He used to have a very fat bottom; he must have lost all that flesh somehow," the prince said. "What does that—oh!"

His eyes fastened directly on her bosom.

She grinned at him. "A word to the wary, Your Highness: I would not consider the curve of an ankle to be an altogether reliable forecast of a woman's curves."

He looked up from her bosom and, to her surprise, smiled with that fierce spark of desire in his eyes, the one that made her feel instantly hot.

"Don't do that," she snapped. "You look like an old goat."

"You practically instructed me to look at your breasts."

"What you are looking at only nominally fits the label," she pointed out.

He snorted. "There may be some sort of padding underneath, Sakura, but what I see is utterly desirable, luscious, creamy…"

Sakura couldn't help smiling. "You know, just because I'm not Hinata doesn't mean that I'm available for seducing."

"I know that," he said, sitting back. "I'm not seducing you, either."

"I'm glad to know it," Sakura said. "Otherwise I might be quite confused. Your being a prince and all, and likely expecting women to fall into your arms. You might decide I was a dairymaid, given my lovely perfume."

He laughed. "I did consider trying to steal you from Kiba, but that was when you were Hinata, with all the money to lavish on her dogs."

"Why do you need an heiress?" she asked. "Naruto implied that the castle might be able to support itself."

"In a nip-cheese fashion that would make my aunts unhappy. One can never have too much money."

Sakura looked at him. It was four o'clock, and the sun's rays were slanting golden across the lake. Sasuke's hair was falling from its tie, and a strand or two curled against his cheek. He was arrogant, and regal, and utterly triumphant to have found out her secret.

He didn't look greedy.

Just arrogant.

Her silence seemed to prick him and he said, "Money can buy you freedom."

"Freedom," she echoed. "Freedom from what? You're not the lion—"

"Oh for Konoha's sake, shut up about the lion," he snapped.

She raised an eyebrow.

"I never speak to anyone that way," he said, with the sweet ruefulness of a boy.

"Obviously I bring out your worst side."

"Yes, let's blame it all on you. At any rate, I would like to have so much money that I could leave my wife in charge here, with all the aunts and uncles and the lion and all, and go off."

"Go? Go off where?"

"Have you ever heard of Dido and Aeneas?"

She shook her head. "Are they historical or literary? I have to admit that I'm shocking ill-educated. I can speak a little French, but otherwise I'm ignoramus."

"Who happened to know the size of a pigsty," he said, his eyes thoughtful.

"Yes, I'm full of charming knowledge of that sort," she said. "What about Dido, then? She has a very unattractive name, I must say."

"She was a Queen. She fell in love with Aeneas, but he was bound by the gods to continue his journey and found the Land of Water…so he did. And she threw herself on a funeral pyre in grief when he left."

He stopped.

"She burned herself for love?"

He nodded.

"Fiction," Sakura declared. "No woman would ever be so foolish. Do you think the footman would consider it improper if you buttoned up my glove? I'm afraid that I can't do all these buttons myself."

"It's not the footman who's the problem; it's the other boaters. You'd better sit next to me so I can do it without anyone's being able to see." He moved to the right side of his bench.

So Sakura stood up and then quickly turned and sat down next to him. He was lean and large, and his legs pressed directly against hers. She could feel color rising in her cheeks.

That spark was back in the prince's eyes. "Well?" he said. "Let's have the glove, then."

Reluctantly Sakura turned over her right hand. The tiny pearl buttons on the glove went past her elbow. The prince bent over her arm.

"You do know," he said, fastening the last pearl, "ladies never sit next to gentlemen."

"Even princes?"

"Only if they're hoping to become princesses."

"I'm not," she said quickly. She was glad to hear the ring of truth in her voice.

"I know that," the prince said. "Sakura?"

"Yes, Your Higness."

"Sasuke. Don't you want to know more about Dido?"

"Not particularly. She sounds like an extraordinarily foolish woman."

"Dido was literary," he said, ignoring her reply. "But she may well also have been historical. And at this very moment a former professor of mine, Kakashi, is excavating an ancient city that might have been hers from the Land of Water."

If there had been a ring of truth in her voice when she talked of marriage, there was a ring of truth longing in his when it came to the Land of Water. "Well, go then," she said startled.

"I can't. I have this castle."

"So?"

"You don't understand. When my brother Itachi cleaned his stables, metaphorically, he threw out everyone and anyone whom he considered to be less than godly."

"Including the lion and the elephant?" Sakura asked. "I could see if he were talking about Coco, since she clearly has no gods before herself, but the elephant? And the monkey?"

"I think that was just because his wife was tired of the smell. But everyone else…out they went, bag and baggage, into my care."

"Are you saying that you are marrying a Russian princess in order to support all of them?"

"Yes," he said bluntly. "Not only is her dowry essential, but I can leave her here to run the castle."

Sakura stood up with one quick movement and sat back down opposite him. "I think we should head for shore," she said. And then: "I just want to make sure that I understand you. You're planning to marry so that you can support your motley family, and then you will promptly leave your wife in charge of the lot of them and go to the Land of Water, wherever that is?"

"You make it sound rather self-serving," Sasuke said, cheerfully enough, "but that's marriage, isn't it?" He waved at the footman and gesture toward shore. "After all, she will gain my title. And with my inestimable gift for ascertaining value, I can tell you that the value of being a princess is high. For all that you show no interest."

"I can't believe that you ever considered seducing Hinata out from the very arms of her betrothed," Sakura said. "She's terribly in love with Kiba, you know. And he's your _nephew_."

"Yes, but it's so hard to feel loyalty to him," the prince said ruefully. "Though I suppose now that I've met you, I should."

"I'm no relation to Kiba."

"But if my guess about your parentage is right, you're his sister-in-law, or you will be," he pointed out.

"So you'll approve the marriage, then?" she asked, deciding not to comment on the question of her parentage. "Kiba will be very happy. If it's all right with you, we'll leave this afternoon, because what with all the ladies who've noticed my less-than-delectable figure, this is quite a nerve-wracking visit."

"No."

She blinked at him. They were gliding into shore now, the punt knocking against the marble ledge circling the lake, and she thought perhaps she misheard him. "Did you say no?"

"You'll stay for my ball." He folded his arms and looked stubborn.

"Don't be absurd. Someone might realize that I'm not Hinata, and now that you know the truth, there's no reason to stay."

"You'll stay because I wish you to."

"_You_ can say whatever you please," she snapped, "but—"

Sasuke leaped onto shore and held out his hand. She stepped from the boat, fuming, and he said in her ear, "Kiba will never cross me, Sakura."

Of course he was right, blast him. She turned and thanked the footman, who was handing out her dogs. "Well," she said. "Do run along and be a prince now, Your Highness."

"Come and dance," he said, holding out his hand.

"You must be mad. Caesar, behave yourself!" One of the swans was swimming perilously close to the shore, at least from Caesar's point of view. Thank goodness none of them had swum up to the boat to greet them.

"Do come," he said.

"Your Highness—"

"Call me Sasuke!" He said it between clenched teeth.

Sakura took one look at his fierce eyes and rolled hers. "Sasuke," she said in a near-whisper. "I'm the dairymaid, remember? I had a governess for only three or four years, and I'm not sure I remember how to dance. I certainly don't want to stumble around in front of Hinata's acquaintances."

"What are you planning to do at the ball?"

"I'll wrap a scarf around my ankle and pretend Caesar tripped me." That scapegoat was pulling at the leash like the little monster he was. "Caesar!" He turned and looked at her, so she made him sit, then rewarded him with a piece of cheese from her purse.

"Your Highness," Naruto said, appearing before them. "Miss Haruno." It wasn't her imagination that he gave her name just the slightest, mischievous emphasis. "I do hate to interrupt Your Highness, but the Countess Kyoko has arrived and she wishes to greet you."

"Wait here," Sasuke said to Sakura, moving away without looking back.

"Sod that," Sakura muttered. "Come on, dogs." She took off in the opposite direction, Coco prancing ahead. The sapphires glued to the dog's coat caught the setting sun and made it look as if she had a gleaming halo around her neck.

There' the money that should have gone into refurbishing the cottager's roofs, Sakura thought. And her dowry. She didn't believe for a moment that Masako hadn't got her hands on it.

She had taken it—and glued it to a dog.

* * *

Sakura heard someone squawking her name—her actual name, not Hinata's—and turned around to fine Lady Tsunade waving from the edge of the maze. She was wearing a madly fashionable red and white striped day dress with a little ruff edging the bodice. As Sakura came closer, she saw that it was a good thing that ruff existed, or Tsuande's breasts would be entirely open to the air.

"Darling!" Tsunade called. "Come here this minute…what on earth are you doing frolicking out on the lake with that prince? Your little turnip of a betrothed is wandering around looking like a dog who's lost his bone and that, as much as anything, has convinced them all that you're really your tart of a sister. Of course, they think the prince is trying to steal your virtue."

"Hush," Sakura said. "Someone will hear you!"

"You can't hear a thing out here," Tsunade said. "Haven't you noticed? I think it's all the water. I was desperately trying to eavesdrop on Lady Moriah warring her husband, but I couldn't hear more than a few insults about her beard and his floppy poppy, as if we didn't know all that already."

"Does she really have a beard?" Sakura said. "Come along, Caesar. We're going to walk this direction."

"_Dogs_," Tsunade said, noticing them for the first time. "Do tell me they're part of the costume, darling, because I just can't abide the beasts. I refuse to have them in Suna when you come to live with me."

"They belong to Hinata," Sakura said.

"No!" Tsuande shrieked. "I forget the animals that tried to gnaw your sister's nose off!" she stared down with horror. "I have a jeweled dagger, you know. I can give it to you so that you can ward off a sudden attack. I generally stick it in my bosom to draw attention, but the end is quite sharp."

Fusion was looking up at Sakura with his usual expression of complete adoration.

"This is Fusion," Sakura said, "and that one with the jewels, is Coco. And Caesar is that tough little customer there." Caesar was growling at a sparrow, presumably keeping himself in practice.

"Well," Tsunade said after a moment of peering at them, "they don't look like ferocious beasts. I rather like that one." She pointed to Coco. "She has a way about her. She looks as if she knows her own worth, and believe me, darling, that's a woman's most important asset."

"Coco is utterly vain," Sakura said laughing.

"Vanity is just another word for confidence," Tsunade said, waving her fan in the air. "There's nothing more enticing to a man. Is she prinked out in jewels or glass?"

"Jewels," Sakura said.

"And she belongs to the feather mattress herself, Masako? Oddly enough, we seem to have more in common than just your father. I like the idea of a bejeweled dog. Perhaps I'll get one of those great Russian dogs, the ones that the nobility have over there, and paste him all over with emeralds. Wouldn't that be pretty?"

"Let's try the maze," Sakura said, wanting to be out of earshot of the party. She moved toward the entrance.

"There's no need to be quite so energetic," Tsunade said. "I was only standing here to keep out of the sun. My heels are extraordinarily high, and not design for prancing through shrubbery."

"They sound very uncomfortable."

"But they show off my ankles. It's absolutely horrible getting older, so one simply has to make the best of what doesn't change."

"Ankles?"

"And breasts," Tsunade said, nodding. "I expect they would have turned into sagging oranges if I'd been lucky enough to have a child. No baby, so I still have a fabulous bosom, while my friends are wrinkled like old prunes."

"I don't have one at all," Sakura said. "Just in case you're wondering, these are wax."

"As I pointed out last night, they are far too large for your figure. Mine are mostly wax too, of course. I call them my bosom friends." She had an enchantingly naughty giggle. "Anyway, as far as men are concerned, it's all about what shows on top. Now, I've found the perfect man for you."

Sakura stopped. "You have?"

"Yes, wasn't that brilliant of me? He's a second cousin once removed on the side of my second husband, but then he's connected as well somehow through Jaraiya—who is already three sheets to the wind, by the way. I stowed him in one of those boats and told the footman not to bring him back to dry land until suppertime. That way he should be steady enough to take me in for the meal."

"Do you mind?" Sakura asked.

"Not particularly," Tsunade said. "I knew he wasn't perfect when I married him, but he's perfect enough. He drinks a bit too much, but so far"—she cast a saucy look at Sakura—"he manages to perform when required."

Sakura snorted.

"Well, thank Goodness, you get a joke. One never knows with virgins."

"I haven't been very sheltered in the last few years," Sakura confessed.

"Don't worry about it," Tsunade said. "As long as you're not as much of a fool as your sister, there's no need to fuss about a bit of liberty before marriage. Just squeak loudly on your wedding night and your husband will never know."

"Oh! I didn't mean _that_," Sakura protested.

Tsunade shrugged. "It's fashionable to be a maid when you're a bride, but if you actually bet the wedding cake on most of our weddings, there'd be a lot of champagne and no cake."

Sakura thought that one through. Her mother used to tell her gently that a woman's virtue was her only true possession. Tsunade certainly had a different point of view. "I wouldn't want to end up like my sister."

"Hinata is notable only for the fact that her mother was such a fool that she taught her nothing about babies," Tsunade said. "Otherwise, she did quite well for herself, all things told. That gaudy young man of hers has a sweet estate. And he certainly is infatuated with her."

"Kiba didn't offer marriage until my stepmother cornered him and told him of the baby."

"Your sister was a fool to have given him what he wanted without getting a proposal first, but as it happened, she managed to tie him down anyway."

"With my luck, I'd find myself in Masako's situation, raising a child in the country, pretending to have a dead colonel for a husband," Sakura pointed out.

"You have wonderful luck," Tsunade said bracingly. "You have _me_. I informed Kiba a few minutes ago that I had recognized you, and he gave me an earful about how wonderful Hinata is. I'm afraid you're not living up to his fiancée, darling. He's all fretful because you were out there on the lake blackening his future wife's reputation. You should sleep with the pretty prince just to fret the man."

"That's going a bit far merely to annoy my brother-in-law."

"Well, you can't pretend that it would be indentured labor," Tsunade said. "The man glitters like a hot day in Suna."

"Too much," Sakura said. "He keeps saying he's not seducing me, but—"

"Of course he is," Tsunade said. "And why shouldn't he? He's a prince, after all."

"That doesn't give him the right to bed whoever crosses his path," Sakura said. "Caesar, get away from there!"

They had somehow come through the other side of the maze without finding the center, and found the rest of the zoo instead. There was a pen full of hairy, smelly goats, and another that housed an ostrich.

"Just look at that bird," Tsunade said. "It looks like a short man craning his neck to look down someone's bodice. We really ought to get back to the lake and find the husband I picked out for you."

"What's his name?" Sakura asked, pulling sharply on Caesar's leash. "Come here, you miserable little beast."

"Your future husband? Gaara. Why don't you let that dog go? The ostrich has an eye on him, see? It's probably like those snakes, the ones that swallow rabbits. Caesar could feed it for days.

"Caesar may not be lovable, but I've grown rather fond of him," Sakura said, hoping that saying it aloud made it true.

"Well, in _that_ case," Tsunade drawled, making it quite clear that she saw through the lie. "Why don't you let me take the bejeweled one for a bit, and you drag along Fusion and Caesar the Lion. I loathe dogs, of course, but perhaps that one is acceptable."

So Sakura handed over Coco. They met a few people on their way back through the maze, but Tsunade introduced Sakura—as Hinata—with such a crushing air of familiarity that no one dared say a word about her miraculous weight loss.

"How can you introduce me to your cousin?" Sakura asked.

"You'll have to call me Hinata, and that won't do."

"Oh, we'll tell him the truth," Tsunade said. "And make it seem as if we need his help. He's the sort who couldn't resist the chance to jump to your rescue. He won't approve, not entirely—because, darling, you _did_ say that you wanted someone who won't ever stray."

An image of the restless, glittering prince flashed into Sakura's mind and she shook it off. "He sounds perfect," she said firmly. "I don't want anyone flamboyant."

"He doesn't need money either, so you needn't worry about his being a fortune hunter."

"I'm not worried, because I'm quite sure you're wrong about my dowry," Sakura said, giving her godmother an apologetic glance. "I thought about it last night. If my mother had left me all that money, she would have said something to me. All those afternoons when my father was in Suna, while she and I sat together. She taught me how to do embroidery, and how to curtsy to a queen, and how to hold my fork and knife."

"She was sick such a long time, poor thing," Tsunade said. "She didn't have time."

"She just got weaker and weaker," Sakura said, around a lump in her throat. "Still, I didn't think…I just came in one morning and she was lying there, but was gone."

"You're going to make _me_ cry," Tsunade said bracingly.

"I just—"Sakura took a deep breath. "She would have told me."

"She thought she had time," Tsunade said. "We all think we have time, you know. It's this miracle substance and there seems to be so much of it, and then all of a sudden, it's gone." Her voice had an edge that made Sakura bite her lip.

"My first husband was older than I was, and I gallivanted around town and generally carried on the way a young wife shouldn't, but that didn't mean I didn't love him. I did. When he died, I howled for days. Absolutely howled. I hated myself for every moment I'd spent with anyone else."

"I'm sorry," Sakura said, touching her arm.

"But that's it," Tsunade said, turning her head. Her eyes were bright and quite dry. "We never know how much time we have with each other. Even your supposed fiancé, who's all bursting with self-importance in his lovely purple waistcoat, could be gone tomorrow."

"Hinata would be—"

'Of course she would," Tsunade interrupted. "But my point is that we can't—we don't—live like that, remembering that the end is coming. Your mother didn't count her time because she loved being with you. She let herself forget that death was coming, and what a gift that was. So she never told you about the money; she knew it was there. More interesting is why your father never said anything to you."

"He actually told me after she died that my mother had left me a dowry, but I was wretched and didn't want to talk about it. And then he went off and brought home Masako. The next thing I knew, he was dead as well."

"Typical of a man," Tsunade said. "They always die inconveniently."

They broke out of the seclusion of the maze to find that the gardens were thronged with elegant gentlepersons. "Now, Gaara is like Dan," Tsunade said. "That would be my second husband, the one before Ian. He was decent through and through. We just have to find Gaara, and I'll drag the two of you into a hedge or something and tell him the story."

"Wait!" Sakura said, grabbing her arm. "I don't want to meet him like this."

"Well, then, how do you want to meet him?"

"Not in this wig," Sakura hissed at her.

"It's better than yesterday's," Tsunade said.

"Can't we wait and meet him at a later date, when I'm myself?"

"No," Tsunade said, "we can't. He's on the verge of declaring himself for Ino Yamanaka. She's practically an octogenarian, at last twenty-two."

"I'm twenty-three!" Sakura said.

"I forgot that. Look, she's so desperate that she went for Lord Kabuto under the table, and he stuck her with a fork. Or no, she stuck him. Later he told everyone that he thought there was a mongrel under the table gnawing at his trousers. I don't want her anywhere near poor Gaara."

"I would still rather not meet him until I'm in Suna."

Tsunade turned and looked at her.

"I just want to look better than this when I meet your—when I meet Mr. Gaara," Sakura confessed.

"He's not Mr. Gaara," Tsunade said in an offended kind of way. "I would never pair off my goddaughter with a merchant. He's Gaara Sabaku."

"I'm fairly sure that my breasts, the wax part, are melting," Sakura said desperately, "because my wig is so hot that I'm sweating. Plus I'd rather not have the dogs with me."

Tsunade looked her over. "You do look rather hot. The blue wig doesn't help."

"I'm going to my chamber," Sakura said, making up her mind. "Here, give me Coco."

"I'll keep her," Tsunade said, rather surprisingly. "I like the way she walks. You can tell just by looking at her that she'd rather be out here showing off her jewels than closed up in your chamber."

Sakura looked down to find that Coco had positioned herself just next to the hem of Tsunade's gown, as if she knew how well her multicolored look complemented striped silk. "Send her back whenever you wish."

"Wear a different wig this evening," Tsuande said. "I'll have that handsome devil Naruto seat us together with Gaara. Do you have a wig that you actually like?"

"No," Sakura said. And then she added, a little desperately, "My hair is my only asset, Tsunade. Please, could I just avoid Gaara until I can meet him as myself?"

"Your hair is your only asset?" Tsunade snorted. "Look at Coco."

Sakura looked.

"She's the most vain scrap of animal I've ever seen, and she's utterly irresistible as a result. No one's going to undervalue her. Do you suppose that she thinks she has only one asset? But you…if you tell yourself that hair is all you've got, then that's all you've got. Among other things—and I don't have time to enumerate them all—you have utterly devastating eyes. That's Hino's color, of course. He had gorgeous dark yellow hair, like some sort of lion, but then the green eyes. He was a sight to behold."

"Hinata sent along a pale green wig that looks better with my eyes than this blue one." Sakura offered.

"Wear that one, then. I'll deal with Naruto, and you screw your courage to the sticking point. Gaara is ripe for the plucking and I don't want Ino to grab him before you.

* * *

Sasuke was fantastically annoyed. He had trampled off to meet Lady Kyoko, and managed to extract himself from a crowd of ladies only after a young woman practically pestered him on the spot. She's powdered her face so heavily that her eyes glowed like bits of coal, desires smoking from her white face.

He only managed to escape by grabbing Neji's arm as he strolled by and pretending that they were bosom friends.

"Miss Amari Gill," Neji said. "You can't blame her, poor thing. She got her materialistic side from her father, and the jaws from her mother."

"I didn't even notice any jaws," Sasuke muttered, walking fast. "Her eyes had me backing up until I was about to fall into the lake."

"She made a dead set for me last year," Neji said cheerfully. "She gave up only after I told her that I was planning to leave all my money to the deserving poor."

"Do you have money, then? Sasuke asked.

"Yes, isn't that lucky for me? Not much at the moment, but someday I'll be a viscount, though I fully expect my papa to live to one hundred. That gets me the attention of ladies like Amari Gill, she looks at me and sees a pile of golden ducats. 'Course, she looks at _you_ and sees ducats with crowns on them, so you'll have to be even more repellent than I was, at least until you are safely married to your princess."

"Have you seen Miss Haruno?"

"She disappeared into the maze with Lady Tsunade. I have to say, I do like Tsunade. She's inexpressibly vulgar, but it's the kind of vulgarity one expects in a queen. Too bad she's not twenty years younger; she'd make a great princess."

"Let's go through the maze," Sasuke said.

Neji raised an eyebrow.

"Don't give me any more of your clever comments," he growled. "This castle is crammed with people making witty comments."

"Simpering cleverness is our ladies' stock-in-trade," Neji said, turning obediently toward the maze.

Which explained, to Sasuke's mind, why Sakura was so fascinating. She wasn't sugary, or simpering, or particularly pretty, especially in that ridiculous blue wig she was wearing today. She wasn't a lady either.

So why was he pursuing her into the maze? He wouldn't—would he?—make her his mistress after her absurd masquerade was over?

She wouldn't want to be his mistress. She was too fierce and sharp-tongued to settle into a lush little country house somewhere. And yet he could see himself riding there, throwing himself off the horse, throwing himself onto her…

By the time they reached the center of the maze he was walking so fast that he's left Neji behind. But there was no one there, only a quiet patch of sunshine housing a little fountain. Water plashed from the mouths of the laughing mer-horses ringing its edge.

He sat on the marble rim, in a patch where he wouldn't be sprinkled by the horses, and wondered what had come over him.

Of course he wouldn't make the illegitimate sister of his newphew's fiancée his mistress. Not that she had shown the faintest interest in that position. He considered himself a decent man, on the verge of marriage.

The sooner Tenari showed up, the better. A wife would stop him from hungering after women with fierce smiles and laughing eyes, women who adorned themselves in blue wigs and pretend to be debutantes.

Neji finally strolled into the clearing and gave the fountain a disappointed frown. "I would have hoped for something far more immoral after all this walking," he said, pulling off his gloves and then his coat. "Damn, it's hot."

"What sort of immoral did you envision?"

"A few chaises longues wouldn't go amiss, even if they were made out of stone. With lounging beauties, _not_ made from stone."

"You're talking bachelor fare," Sasuke said. "I'm taking a wife."

"I hear tell there are wives who take to a bit of immoral," Neji said.

"Are you looking for a wife?"

"Absolutely not," Neji said, throwing himself down on the broad marble ledge around the fountain. "Lovely, the spray's blowing on my face. I don't see what you're doing trolling amongst our Konohan maidens anyways. Though I hate to mention it, you _are_ holding a betrothal ball for yourself in a few days."

"I know," Sasuke said, unaccountably depressed. "My fiancée should be arriving tomorrow or the next day."

"Were you sent a miniature?" Neji inquired.

"No."

"So you have no idea what your future wife looks like? That's so desperately medieval. I shouldn't care for it."

"I don't," Sasuke said. "My brother fixed it all up after I sailed for Konoha."

There was moment of silence. "Looks aren't everything," Neji offered. "Take Miss Haruno as an example. When I first met her, I thought of her as a fluffy, giggly type. But that illness must have given her a backbone. She's far more appetizing now, even though she's little more than a twig. You should have seen how juice she was a few months ago."

"No," Sasuke said. His voice came out a rumble, from somewhere deep in his chest.

Neji didn't notice; he was waving his hand happily through the fountain spray. "I take it that you're perfectly aware of her charms, given the way you sprinted through the maze after her. She must have been on death's door, the difference is so marked. Only thing still the same is her bosom, which makes me suspect—"

Without thinking, Sasuke lunged over and pinned the man flat against the marble. "Her bosom is not for you."

Neji froze. "Let me go," he said slowly.

Feeling a bit foolish, Sasuke raised his hand.

"Damn it," Neji said, sitting up. "If you plan to steal your nephew's bride, then do it. There's no need to play Wild Prince."

"I'm an ass," Sasuke said. "Sorry."

Neji got to his feet and retrieved his coat. "You just surprised me, going all masculine and provincial."

"Surprise myself as well. And I'm not stealing my nephew's bride."

At that Neji turned around and stare. "Why bother defending her bosom, if not?"

It was a good question. Just some sort of madness induce by Sakura, he decided. "She doesn't like me."

"I hate to destroy your illusions," Neji said acidly, "but she's probably not the first person you've met who would fall into that category."

Sasuke gave him a rueful grin; it was no more than he deserved. "Perhaps I'm having a nervous reaction to Miss Kyoko's pursuit."

"From here, it looks more as if you're having a quite different reaction to Miss Haruno's proximity."

Sasuke didn't know what to say to that, so they set off through the maze without another word.


	6. Chapter 6

"What do you mean I have to sit with Lady Dagimo?" Sasuke asked. "I don't want to."

Naruto lit a cheroot and glared at him over the trail of smoke. "You're acting more like a four-year-old child than a grown man. Of course you're sitting next to the countess. She's the highest-ranking individual in the castle excluding yourself; she has known you since you were a child; she will be to your right."

"I want to sit next to Sakura," Sasuke said, ignoring the truth of Naruto's statement. "Like last night. I'll dine with _the family_."

"You will not," Naruto said. "Miss Sakura Haruno, sometimes known as Hinata, is to sit with her godmother, Lady Tsunade, as well as Lord Sabaku. I don't want to puncture whatever pleasant dream you're having of transforming the illegitimate swineherd's daughter into a princess—or something less respectable—but her godmother is clearly planning to match her to Lord Sabaku."

"Sakura can't marry a lord. She's illegitimate."

"All I can say is that Lady Tsunade gave me two guineas to put them together, and since she's not a brothel keeper, my guess is that she's found some way around Sakura's irregular birth. It could be that she's not as illegitimate as I am."

"Nothing about Sakura makes sense," Sasuke said. "Why are her hands callused if her godmother is Lady Tsunade?"

"The only thing completely clear about the situation is your infatuation," Naruto said. "Let me sum it up for you: Sakura, very sensibly, shows no interest in you. Frightened by the imminent arrival of your bride, you are now running shrieking in the direction of the one woman who not only doesn't want you, but isn't eligible. Really, could you be a bit more original?"

"I almost took off Neji's head for an ill-considered remark about her bosom," Sasuke said moodily. "He was decent about it, but he was angry to the bone. Damn it and I like him."

"Then stop this ridiculousness," Naruto said. "You're chasing the girl to distract yourself. It's not kind to her, since you couldn't marry her anyway. She's already got competition; Lady Yamanaka gave me four guineas to put her daughter and herself next to Gaara, so the man's in demand. Sakura will need all her wits about her."

Sasuke frowned. "Lady Yamanaka, whose daughter is Miss Ino Yamanaka? She's no competition! Sakura will crush her to the ground."

"Miss Ino is presumably of excellence birth, and likely has a dowry," Naruto pointed out.

"I'll give Sakura a dowry," Sasuke said instantly.

"One minute you want to seduce her, and the next you're championing her marriage to Gaara? And just where do you plan to get the money for a dowry? I'm worried about feeding the lion, for merlin's sake."

"I'm just saying that Ino Yamanaka is a monkey's arse compared to Sakura."

Naruto sigh. "Forget Sakura."

"_You_ should dower her," Sasuke said moodily. "Six guineas from that table alone…"

"The going rate is much higher to sit at your table," Naruto said, grinning. "I gather all the young ladies are hoping Princess Tenari's ship will flounder."

"So it's to your benefit to keep me unwed."

"I know you don't really want your Russian bride, Sasuke," Naruto said, his voice softening.

Sasuke glanced up at his brother. Naruto never called him Sasuke anymore; it was always Your Highness, or more often, Your Heinous, occasionally Your Knaveness. "It's not that I don't want Tenari. I don't want any bride."

"So run to the Land of Water. We'll all survive here, and you wouldn't be the first bridegroom to flee before your wedding night."

For a split second Sasuke actually considered it, imagining himself dropping all responsibilities and promises, running for the Land of Water like a man with a devil on his tail.

Then he shook his head. "Promises were made, and we need the money," he said, hoisting himself up. "I'm aiming to be a prince rather than a total ass. I'd better haul myself off to Pole. He gets twitchy if I don't give him at least an hour."

* * *

As the castle now held nearly one hundred gentlepersons, Naruto had removed the vast oak table that usually spanned the dining hall, and placed tables for six and eight around the room instead. He himself met every person at the entrance hall, and with the seating arrangements safely stowed in his head, dispatched them to the appropriate table in the tender care of a footman.

The whole system was working more smoothly than did most military regiments, Sasuke thought, moving to the head of his particular table, Lady Dagimo on his arm. "What a pleasure to meet your daughter, my lady," he said bowing to Lady Arabella.

Arabella smiled at him with the guileless charm of a young lady trained to bag eligible men at fifty paces. He sighed and left the conversation wander where it would, and the table was quickly embroiled in a discussion of the War's blockade's influence on hemlines.

He didn't let himself look over to Sakura's table. Not even when he actually heard her laughing. One had to assume that Gaara was amusing.

Lady Arabella gave him a startled look when she heard the low growl that came from somewhere in his chest, but he controlled himself and smiled at her, and she melted.

Like snow hitting a steaming pile of horseshit, he thought to himself.

Across the room, Sakura would have agreed that Gaara was amusing. He wasn't a wit, not in the way that Neji seemed to be. But she liked him.

She liked the sturdy set of his shoulders, and the way his red hair curled over his forehead, as if he were a little boy. He was a charmingly boyish, really, while managing to be very much a man. The only problem was Miss Ino Yamanaka, who was seated to his left.

As Tsunade had warned, Ino was making a dead set for Gaara. And it looked to Sakura as if she was likely to succeed, given the way she kept putting her hand on his arm, as if they were as close bosom friends as Tsunade and her wax companions.

Ino was quite pretty, in a mouse-eyes kind of way, Sakura thought uncharitably. She had soft yellow curls, a round chin, and straight little teeth. She wasn't stupid either.

"You're very fortunate," she said, smiling lavishly at Sakura, who, of course, she thought was Hinata. "I wish I were celebrating my betrothal in a castle. It's just so romantic!"

"I am very privileged that my uncle is so kind to me," Kiba put in, just to make sure that everyone remembered his relationship to royalty.

"Of course," Sakura said a bit sheepishly. Hinata would have loved to sit at this table, accepting praises for her betrothal. She felt as if she were stealing flowers that had been sent to her sister.

Ino turned to Gaara. "Do tell me more about the blackbirds, Lord Sabaku."

Sakura blinked.

"That came out of the blue, didn't it?" Gaara said, his eyes twinkling.

"Yes," Sakura said. "It's oddly fascinating, though. For example," she said to Ino, "if you had said, _Tell me more about the crows_, it would have a rather sinister tone, whereas blackbirds make one think about pies."

"And queens and counting houses," Gaara said. "Now what if Miss Yamanaka had said, _Tell me more about Minotaur's_. What would you think of me then?"

Sakura laughed, and Ino tittered uncertainly. "I'd think that Miss Yamanaka was five years old, and you were telling me her fairy tales. But not everything fantastic would have the same ring. What would you think if she asked, _Tell me more about the giant_?"

"I wouldn't think about children's stories," Gaara said, "but about the men who wrestle each other at the fair."

"But _Tell me more about the giantess_?"

"I'd think you were talking about Lady Dagimo," Tsunade put in, with a wicked grin. The countess could not be described as slender.

Lady Yamanaka shifted uneasily; her own figure rather resembled Lady Dagimo's. "I think," she interjected, "that my dear Ino was merely fascinated by your account of a plague of blackbirds, Lord Sabaku."

"A plague of blackbirds," Sakura said before she could stop herself. "It sounds like divine retribution, which is ominous. What have you been up to, Lord Sabaku?"

Gaara laughed again, and Sakura thought about how very _nice_ he was. "It may be divine retribution," he said, "but if so, I'm not sure to which of my many sins to attribute it. And it wasn't a plague of frogs, may I point out."

Ino turned to Sakura, her eyes cool. "The blackbirds are causing a serious inconvenience to Lord Sabaku, Miss Haruno. They are roosting in his eaves and diving at the servants when they enter the kitchen gardens. And now they've started attacking his guests."

Sakura couldn't suppress the little cynical smile on her face. It was one thing when birds attacked servants…but guests? "It's unlike blackbirds to be so aggressive," she said to Gaara. "They're acting like bluebirds. Could you have disturbed their nests somehow so they had to relocate to the eaves?"

"I don't think so," he said. "I hate to admit it, but I never gave the birds much thought, though there were some complaints from the housekeeper. But last week the vicar came to call and I'm afraid that…well…"

"What?" Ino asked, confused. "Did a blackbird pounce at his head?"

Gaara had turned a little red.

"I suspect they shat on the vicar," Sakura told Ino, putting Gaara out of his misery. "All that black, marked with white. The man must have looked like a chessboard."

Lady Yamanaka drew in her breath with audible sound of displeasure. "Well, I never!" she said.

Ino's pink mouth formed a tiny, startled circle, but Tsunade laughed and said, "It proves that the plague of blackbirds wasn't the work of heaven. I assume that the vicar did not react in a pious manner."

"This is a remarkably vulgar conversation," Lady Yamanaka said, her eyes fixed on Sakura.

"I shall make the birds into a pie," Gaara said, coming to the rescue. "Thank you for that suggestion, Miss Haruno."

"Oh, I didn't mean it," Sakura cried, feeling a pang of guilt. "You mustn't shoot at them, Lord Sabaku. The creatures have no idea they were upsetting your servants; they were probably just protecting their babies. Nesting season must be over, so you could send up a man to clean out the nests."

"They'll build them again," Kiba said, affecting as authoritative a voice as his eighteen-year-old self could muster. "You'll have to take a gun to them, though of course the young ladies will dislike the idea. My betrothed has very delicate sensibilities," he stated, staring hard at Lady Yamanaka.

Sakura gave him a rather surprised smile. It was nice of Kiba to come to her defense.

"Would you feel the same if I had suffered a plague of frogs?" Gaara inquired. "I've heard that some people from Konoha eat frogs as a daily affair, you know. "

"I think," Sakura said, "that you should cook up any frogs that hop—or fall—onto your property, Lord Sabaku." She added with a grin, "Just please don't invite me to supper."

"I don't think the Konohans put frogs into pies," Ino said seriously.

Gaara looked at her and smiled. It was clear that he liked her earnestness. "In point of fact, I don't like the idea of shooting around my house."

Ino gave a little squeal. They all looked at her. "Well," she said, "you might strike someone dead."

"'He's presumably use birdshot," Sakura told her. "One of my footmen took a load of birdshot and he couldn't sit down for two weeks, which caused a great deal of amusement in the household. His name was Barsey and –" she broke off.

"You have a lively sense of humor, Miss Haruno," Gaara said, showing that he had realized exactly how close _Barsey_ was to arse.

"I don't inquire as to the names of my footmen," Lady Yamanaka said loftily. "I called them all Ken, which suffices well enough."

Sakura was appalled, but she bit her tongue. It was the last seven years, of course, living as half a servant and half a family member…it had changed her attitude toward the household. It took an effort of will not to snap at Lady Yamanaka.

"I know all our footmen's names, "Miss Ino said, showing that she wasn't nearly as blind as her mother. She curled her hand around Gaara's arms again. At this rate the man was going to start feeling as if he were wearing a mourning band. "Don't you think that it is our providential duty to care for all those below us, whether they be birds or unfortunate degenerates?"

"Are your footmen unfortunate degenerates?" Tsunade put in cheerfully. "The only one of those in my household is my darling Jaraiya."

They all glanced over at Tsunade's husband, seated opposite her. Jaraiya gave Sakura a naughty wink and said, "It take a degenerate to keep track of my wife, I assure you. No one else would have the imagination."

Lady Yamanaka sniffed in horror, but Sakura liked Jaraiya, for all Tsunade's complaints about his drinking. True, he seemed to be enjoying the champagne more than the fish, but for that matter, so was she.

* * *

The evening's entertainment was announced by Naruto; it was to be a display of naval prowess on the lake, designed by Prince Madara.

"The gardens in the dark?" Lady Yamanaka said, sniffing again. "My daughter will certainly not participate. We shall retire."

"When one is older, one simply _must_ rest one's bone," Tsunade said. "If you wish, I will chaperone your daughter for you."

Lady Yamanaka took a deep breath, which had the unfortunate effect of swelling her more-than-ample bosom.

"Darling," Tsunade said kindly, "I'm afraid you've suffered a wardrobe malfunction."

Lady Yamanaka glanced down at her right nipple, which was staring like a fish eye over the riffle edging her bodice, and slapped her napkin over her chest, surging to her feet. "Ino, come!" she said, with all the authority that Sakura tried to use with Caesar.

It worked about as well for Her ladyship as it did for Sakura. "Mama, I should dearly love to see the naval display," Ino said, her voice soft but firm. "I shall be perfectly safe under the chaperonage of Lady Tsunade."

"We shall guard your treasure very carefully," Gaara said. He was standing of course. As soon as Lady Yamanaka's nipple made its appearance, all the gentlemen leaped to their feet, though Sakura knew it was ostensibly in response to the lady's departure.

"I doubt it will be a long performance," Tsunade put in. "We'll all trot back to the house in a few minutes."

"Very well," Lady Yamanaka said, her napkin still clutched to her breast. "Ino, I expect you to come to my chamber the very moment spectacle is finished."

"I will, Mama," Ino said, sounding very cheerful.

"I don't think you have that story right," Sakura whispered to Tsunade as they strolled from the dining room. "Ino can't possibly have groped Lord Kabuto under the table. She's not that sort of woman."

"She wouldn't know what she was groping for, would she?" Tsunade said. "It must have been someone else. But I'm right about the fact that Gaara is ripe for plucking _and_ that the two of you are quite suited. Don't you see what will happen to him if he marries her?"

"He'll be happy," Sakura said. "She's quite sweet, in a somber kind of way."

"She never laughs unless someone else gives her a cue." Tsunade said, sounding genuinely dismayed. "And I like Gaara. He's grown into a very decent fellow. When he was just five years old, he used to lean on my knee and ask me to tell him another story." She narrowed her eyes. "Of course, I was a mere toddler myself. If you _ever_ tell anyone that I am old enough to have told Gaara stories, I'll be forced into an act of violence."

"What kind of violence?" Sakura inquired, fascinated.

"I've the measure of you," Tsunade said. "You don't like dogs, but you're doing your best with those little mongrels of your sister's. You don't care for lions, but you're championing for a bigger cage. You wouldn't even let the nasty blackbirds be made into a pie in order to restore the dignity of the vicar. It would be easy to put you under my thumb; all I'd have to do is threaten to throw Coco on the King's highway."

"I would save Coco only because my dowry is glued to her neck," Sakura said. The disconcerting thing was that Tsunade was right, of course. That was how Masako had kept her under her thumb all these years: by threatening to dismiss a footman, or the housekeeper, or even dear Yamato.

They were walking out the back of the castle now. Stretching before them were the pale marble steps descending to the lake. They shimmered the color of pearl in the light of torches that lined the stairs.

"What on earth have you done with Coco, by the way? She never came back to my room."

"She's right here," Tsunade said smugly. "And what a good girl she is; no one heard a peep from her during the meal." She turned around and crooned, "Come on darling." Coco pranced out before them, her tail waving.

"What's she got around her neck?" Sakura asked. "And on her leash?"

"Ribbons and flowers to match my gown, of course," Tsunade said. "Her jewels are all very well, but a lady needs a new dressing in the evening. So my maid soaked off the jewels and replaced them with a flower called lupine, which sounds like a half-deranged wolf, but is actually beautiful and matches my costume perfectly."

"She looks as if she's stuck her head through a funeral wreath." Sakura pointed out.

"Coming from a woman wearing a wig the color of a gooseberry, that means little." Tsunade retorted.

"I have to wear a wig," Sakura said firmly. "I'm incognito."

"You make it sound as if you're working for the Foreign Office," Tsunade said. "Now what are you going to do to dislodge Ino from Gaara's arm? She's attached like a limpet."

Sakura shrugged.

"No wonder you're unmarried at the ripe age of twenty-three," Tsunade said. "Jaraiya, come here!"

Her husband, who was ambling along behind them, looking just slightly tipsy, stepped forward next to Sakura. "Yes, love?" he said.

Sakura liked that. She could tolerate a husband who drank too much if he called her love and looked at her the way Jaraiya looked at Tsunade. As if he's be there for her, always.

"Can you shake some sense into my goddaughter? She's practically as old as I am, and yet she's lazy when it comes to marriage."

Jaraiya twinkled at Sakura. "Tsunade likes marriage," he said, taking her arm. "That's why she's done it so many times."

"I wouldn't have had to if men lived longer," Tsunade said.

"Is there anyone you'd particularly like to marry?" Jaraiya asked Sakura.

The prince, Sakura thought—and quelled the thought in horror. What on earth was she thinking? It was just that kiss...that kiss…

"No one in particular," she said firmly.

"What about Neji? He's a decent chap," Jaraiya said. "My house at Konoford and all. He's going to be a viscount someday."

"You went to Konoford as well?" Sakura inquired.

"A double in writing and history," Tsunade put in. "Never marry anyone with fewer brains than yourself, darling. It always ends badly."

"If my wife had gone to Konoford, they would have to create a triple first," Jaraiya said.

"What did you say?" Tsunade asked.

"In seduction," he whispered.

Sakura giggled, and Gaara turned around and looked back at them. It might have been her imagination, but he looked as if he were longing to know the joke.

"Sakura can't marry Neji," Tsunade said. "For goodness' sake, Jaraiya. The man's got a wandering eye. I can assure you of that."

"All eyes wander in my wife's direction," Jaraiya sang tunefully.

Tsunade reached past Sakura and poked him. "But they don't wander into your wife's bed, so be happy with that. Now, my idea is that Sakura should marry…" She nodded at Gaara's back.

"Really?" Jaraiya said, a trifle doubtfully.

"Why not?"

"I was listening to the dinner conversation," Jaraiya said, "and it seemed to me that Miss Sakura has a great deal of wit, as my grandmother would say. She reminds me of you, m'dear."

"Well, I did hold her during her baptism," Tsunade said. "Maybe I rubbed off on her."

"And _you_ would not be happy in such a marriage," Jaraiya continued. "The man in question is a brave and gentle soul, no doubt. But in a matter of ten years he will be falling asleep in a chair by the fire, after spending supper disapproving to make his boots."

"Unkind," Tsunade said. "Very unkind." But she was laughing.

"I should enjoy that," Sakura said firmly. "I have very few ambitions, and if I knew my husband was asleep in a chair opposite me, I would cheerfully doze off myself. What I do not want is a husband who is out offering sugarplums to other women while I am at home alone."

"Sugarplums," Tsunade said. "One could almost think that you meant something metaphorical, dearest Sakura."

"Sakura?" Ino suddenly said, glancing over her shoulder. "Are you calling Miss Haruno Sakura? How sweet; is that a family name?"

"Absolutely," Tsunade said, smiling at her with tigerish emphasis, all her teeth showing. "I am her godmother, after all. I have pet names for all my dear ones."

"She calls me her sugarplum," Jaraiya said.

Ino was tripping down the steps again, so he added: "But I made her stop: altogether too soft and pillowy for, ahem, someone like me."

Sakura couldn't help laughing.

"Too small too," Tsunade added proudly.

They had reached the bottom of the steps and were greeted by Naruto. "You are fortunate to have arrived so promptly; you needn't watch from the shore but can actually join the entertainment," he said. "If you would follow me." He took them a short way around the lake and stopped before a gilded boat whose elaborately carved prow arched high in the air. The seats were padded luxuriously and set at an angle; presumably they would all recline.

"That looks like a very, very small ship," Jaraiya said.

Tsunade sat down in the carved seat that made up the stern of the boat and snuggled Coco onto her lap.

"If I didn't know you better," Sakura said, "I'd think you were in love with that dog."

"She and I understand each other," Tsunade said loftily. "Besides…" She scratched Coco under one ear. "She's quite affectionate, isn't she?"

"She wasn't with me," Sakura said. "You're making me miss Fusion. He looks at me with those same eyes."

Gaara scrambled onto the boat and sat down next to Sakura on one side of the boat. Kiba, following him, sat next to Ino on the other side. Jaraiya dropped next to Tsunade, stretching his legs out and said, "I like this kind of military entertainment. So different from what one expects."

"What are we doing in this boat?" Ino asked, sitting bolt upright rather than reclining on the padded seat. "Wouldn't it be better to watch from shore? The lake is so black at night."

At that moment a footman leaned forward and lit a torch on the shore before their boat, and then a torch actually attached to the prow of their ship. They both leaped into flame—blue flame. Ino screamed.

"Don't worry, Miss Yamanaka," Kiba said. "It can't hurt you."

"Why is it blue?" she whimpered.

That stumped Kiba, leaving Jaraiya to drawl, "They've put some powder in with the oil. See, some boats are flaming red and others blue. They appear to be four of each."

Kiba was busily patting Ino's arms. "My fiancée is just the same," he said. "Ladies are delicate and frighten easily."

"Your fiancée doesn't look frightened in the least," Ino pointed out, narrowing her eyes at Sakura.

Sakura realized that was her cue to look timid, but couldn't manage. "I do believe that we are part of a naval flotilla," she said. "Look! We're the blues."

"What I can't figure out," Gaara said, "is how we're going to take our places on the lake. Unless we're meant too—"

But at that moment the boat rocked, very gently, and began to pull away from the shore, as if drawn by an invisible hand. Naturally, Ino screamed again. Kiba had taken her hand now, and was patting it madly.

"You're going to give her a bruise," Sakura said.

"It's magic!" Ino cried.

Gaara was craning his neck around the side of the boat. "Though magic sounds very delectable, in fact, we're attached to a rope," he reported. "There must be a man on the other side of the lake, drawing us over."

"And look," Sakura said, "the other boats are all coming out too."

From around the perimeter of the lake, boats flaming red or blue were slowly moving toward the center.

Ino asked the obvious. "What if we all crash? I wish we weren't going backwards. I don't like sitting backwards in a coach either. I always make my maid do it."

"I can swim," Kiba announced.

"Obviously we're not going to crash," Tsunade said. "Although, Jaraiya, remember that if you have to two me to shore, you'd better not forget my darling Coco or you'll wish you'd sunk."

It was a good thing that Hinata had never appeared to care overly much about her dogs; it seemed that Coco would never darken the door of Masako's house again.

A boat slid by them, red flame dancing over the excited faces inside the boat. The prince wasn't among them, though it was a weakness of Sakura's that she even noticed.

"About an inch to spare," Jaraiya said coolly.

"It's designed like clockwork," Gaara said. "The boats are all slipping past each other; it must look amazing from the shore." In a few minutes all the boats had crossed the lake and reached the opposite side.

A grinning footman reeled them in. "Well done," Gaara said. "You must have practiced for days to carry this out so well."

"Weeks," the man said.

Sakura stripped off her right glove and trailed her fingers in the water, silently scolding herself for wondering where Sasuke was.

"Have you taken off your glove?" Ino asked, sounding rather awed.

"Yes," Sakura said. She raised her fingers and flicked water into the blue light thrown off by the torch. "Isn't it lovely?"

The boats were all moving slowly out from shore again, recommencing their orchestrated water ballet.

Ino looked at her gloves but folded her hands in her lap.

"Go on," Tsunade said rather kindly, for her. "I won't tell your mother."

"A lady—" Ino started, but stopped. She's obviously just remembered that it would be impolite to suggest that Sakura was not behaving in a ladylike manner.

"A lady should never feel anxious about her behavior," Tsunade announced. "The status is bred in the bone. To show anxiety is to lower oneself. Anxiety is _vulgar_."

Ino digested that and finally pulled off one glove and consigned it to Kiba's care. At first she squealed about how cool the water felt, but she seemed to gain courage as the boat moved silently out into the lake. When the first boat slid past them, she copied Sakura and flicked drops of sparkling blue water toward them, giggling madly at the surprised faces in the boat.

No prince, Sakura noticed crossly. He was probably on shore, cozied up to a rich baroness.

A second boat slipped past them, rocking a little. "What are they up to?" Tsunade asked. She had her head on Jaraiya's shoulder and was looking happily at the sky.

"They've got a bottle of champagne," Kiba said in a disapproving voice.

"Damn, got in the wrong boat," Jaraiya said softly.

His wife reached up and pinched his nose.

Kiba was watching the red-torched boat retreat. "They must be rocking it on purpose."

"Silly," Ino said, happily trailing her hand in the water all the way up to her wrist. One had to suppose that this was her first taste of freedom, such as it was.

Another boat approached, rocking even more wildly.

"All young men in that boat," Gaara said. "They need women to keep them calm. And sober."

"Don't tell me that we're the only boat consigned to sobriety," Jaraiya said, with mock sorrow.

"They've—yes!" Kiba cried, peering ahead. "A man's overboard. He's all right; he caught on to the rope."

"What fools," Gaara said with disgust.

"Wet fools," Jaraiya said. "It might set a new fashion for castle entertainment. Enough with the motley, and on with the water."

"He's swimming to shore," Kiba said.

"The problem is one of timing," Jaraiya said in a different tone of voice, sitting up. "Are you dripping with diamonds tonight?" he asked his wife.

"No," Tsunade replied. "Well, I have the big emerald and I'm afraid my ear bobs aren't firmly attached." She pulled them off in a businesslike fashion. "You'd better take them." She handed over her jewels and hitched Coco so firmly against her boson that the normally quiet dog gave a little yelp of protest. "Gaara, you're in charge of my goddaughter. And Kiba, you have Ino."

"Why?" Ino asked in alarm. "What do you mean, Lady Tsunade?"

"Jaraiya's very good at this sort of thing," Tsunade said, "and if he thinks—"

But at that very moment a boat loomed up, except that it didn't slide sweetly past their prow. Instead it slammed right into their side. For a second, it looked as if they would be fine. The boat tilted wildly, but righted itself.

But then their boat jerked again, presumably because the footman was trying to pull them to shore, and it lurched over to the other side.

Ino screamed; Sakura screamed too, for the split second before water rushed toward her and she fell into the lake.

The water was cold but not freezing. She a moment of terror thinking that the boat was on top of her, but then she realized she was facing the bottom of the lake and managed to kick her way to the top.

She broke the surface with a gasp and cough, and looked wildly for the boat. She turned in a circle, kicking madly to stay afloat, and couldn't see it. The lake was covered with flaring torches that appeared to be bouncing up and down from her position on the surface of the lake, but her boat…her boat…There it was. Getting farther away by the second.

"I knew you weren't a lady," said an amused voice at her ear. "No lady even knows that word."

She screamed and would have clutched at him, but Sasuke was behind her, slipping a strong arm around her waist. He pulled her back against his chest, so she was virtually lying on her back in the water. "Don't be so loud," he said in her ear. "You don't want all the other rescuers to find you instead of me, do you?"

"What rescuers?" Sakura said, spitting out a little lake water. "My godmother told Gaara to save me and he obviously failed to do so."

"I'd love to say he sank like a stone," Sasuke said, kicking his legs so they started moving through the water, "but it's unlikely. My whole boat went over as well, and I expect Gaara rescued the wrong damsel in distress."

"I like that," Sakura said darkly. "I could have drowned. I hope Tsunade is all right."

"Lady Tsunade managed to remain in the boat," Sasuke said. "Her husband lunged for the opposite side at just the right moment and righted it. I think Miss Yamanaka may have escaped the water as well."

"Tsunade must be worried about me," Sakura said. "Could you swim a little faster?"

"No, I could not," Sasuke said. "This is my fastest when it comes to swimming on my back and dragging you as well. I don't think Lady Tsunade is worried, because she caught sight of me in the water and instructed me with one ferocious gesture to go after you. So I did."

I could kick too," Sakura offered,

"Your skirts are giving me enough trouble," Sasuke said.

There was a moment of silence. "Are we almost at shore?" She asked. The lights of the boat that she thought was hers were receding quickly.

"We would have been, but I must have got turned around," Sasuke said. "We're heading for the far shore."

"There are no boats over there," Sakura said, peering over her shoulder.

"Don't complain," Sasuke said. "You're no lightweight, for all you've supposedly lost two stone."

"Just be glad you're not rescuing Hinata," Sakura said.

"I am." Then he gave a grunt, which turned out to be because he has swum straight into the marble lip of the lake.

"I can do it," Sakura said, twisting out of his grip and catching the marble.

He hauled himself up and then reached down and grabbed her wrist, pulling her up as easily as if he were landing a trout.

"Oh," Sakura said, shivering uncontrollably. "It's so cold. You were brilliant, thanks." She wrapped her arms around herself and peered across the lake. "Damnation, we came up on the far side."

Sasuke was walking away from her along the shore, so she stumbled after him, thinking that princes weren't all that gentlemanly when it came to it. He could at least have taken her arm. But then he bent over and started to pull on a rope.

Sakura stood next to him, tremors going from the top of her shoulders to her feet. "Are—are you getting us a boat?" she asked, feeling as if cold water had frozen her brain.

He was hauling on the rope so fast that it was spinning out behind him. "Don't let this slap you," he said with a gasp, and she suddenly realized how hard he was working. Sure enough, a boat was cutting through the water toward them. It was one of the red ones, its torch burning low now.

Sakura could have sobbed with joy at the sight of it. "Will they pull us back?" she asked. "Don't answer that! Save your breath." In the light of the approaching torch, she could see his muscled arms pulling, hand over hand, so fast that the rope raced past his shoulder.

It was…interesting. He looked like a farm laborer, but at the same time, not like a farm laborer.

The boat met the marble edge with a splintering thud. "Come on," Sasuke said, breathing hard. He leaped in and held out his hand. She climbed on, almost losing her footing because of her wet slippers.

"Sit down; they'll pull us over directly," he said.

"I—" she said, teeth chattering, but he pulled her down onto his lap, and that was the end of whatever she was about to say.

His body was huge and warm, and she was so cold that she melted into him with an entirely unladylike noise. He wrapped his arms around her and she almost moaned again from the pleasure of it.

"You're warm," she said after a moment, feeling that they should be having some sort of conversation. "Is the boat moving?"

"Yes." He tucked her more firmly against the warmth of his chest. "Are you still cold?"

"Not as much."

"I have the solution to your chill," he said, and his voice had gone dark and fierce. She turned her face up to his like a child seeking a good-night kiss—it was that natural—and his lips parted hers.

Their third kiss, she thought dimply, and it was already different from the others. They kissed now as if they knew each other, as it they were both leaping into a fire that they longed for. Raw heat scorched down her backbone and she broke away with a little murmur, almost frightened by the force of it.

But his arms tightened and he wouldn't let her go, brushing his mouth against her. Then she felt his tongue caressing her bottom lip until she gasped from the sweet heat. He took her gasp as if it were an invitation and gave her a little bite, nibbling on her lip in a way that somehow had Sakura pressing against his chest as if she wanted to get closer and closer.

He just kept teasing her, until she took her hands from his chest and wrapped them around his neck, pulling his head down to hers in a silent demand.

She could feel him laughing and then he was kissing her again and their tongues were tangling in a kind of rough explosion that made her feel dizzy and breathless.

The time _he_ pulled back. "We're coming to shore. They'll be able to see us soon." He sounded a little drunk.

Sakura nodded, looking up at him. His eyes were black in the torchlight, his cheekbones drawn, and his wet hair slicked straight back from his head. He looked like a warrior, the kind who pillaged villages and stole maidens.

Maidens like her, milkmaids and poor relations and women with few relatives.

She cleared her throat and quickly shifter off his lap to the seat next to him. "Thank you for warming me," she said, starting to shiver immediately.

An odd look passed through his eyes and she followed his gaze downward. Her gown was utterly soaked, of course, and unfortunately her wax breast had not survived their bath unscathed. One was still in place, perkily holding up Sakura's meager offering. But the one on the right, where Sasuke's arm had towed her through the water, had been squished. The misshapen remains had migrated down and were positioned just above her waistline.

She looked down, thinking desperately what to say. "Tsunade calls them her 'bosom friends,' she blurted out, saying the first thing that came to her head. "If you would please close your eyes…"

He did. "A gentleman would not be grinning like that," she scolded, plucking the freezing ball of wax from her ruined gown. The crushed one was bit trickier, but she was able to pull her destroyed bodice down enough to pull it out through her stays.

The boat was close to shore by the time she had restored her bosom it its natural state. Luckily they were obscured from view by the fact that their torch had at last spluttered out, though she could make out curious faces lining the marble basin.

"All right," she said, hauling her bodice into a reasonable approximation of its former self.

He opened his eyes.

"Take that expression off your face!" she said crossly.

"It's this or look at you in such a way that everyone would know _exactly_ what I'm thinking about," he said softly.

She glanced down and saw her nipples poling straight through the wet silk. Heat rose in her face. "You'd better give the discards to me," he said. "If the servants find them, they'd never be able to keep it to themselves."

She had them hidden at her side, but she reluctantly handed them over. Sasuke turned over the blobs of wax. "You don't need these," he said. "But they're fascinating, all the same."

"You may keep them," Sakura said. She could see Naruto standing on the shore with what looked like a blanket in his hands. "Now," she commanded, "go get me that blanket. I'm not standing up in this drenched gown."

"Not without your bosom friends," he said.

She gave him a fierce look, and it worked as well as it did with the hairdresser; Sasuke got up, still laughing, and fetched the blanket.

Then he came back and wrapped her in it. "Your wig is gone," he said, looking down at her. "You look like a drowned rat."

He looked breathtakingly handsome, but she should retaliate for the benefit of his soul. The man raised confidence to the level of a deadly sin. "You look—"she began. But there was something in his eyes that she liked, something lustful perhaps, but still…

"Thank you," she said. "I might have drowned without you and I'm very grateful that you towed me out."

A strange look crossed his eyes. "You should slap me for that kiss, for taking advantage of your chill."

She moved around him, heading to the bow of the boat and Naruto's outstretched hand. Just before disembarking, she paused and looked over her shoulder. "Perhaps I took advantage of _you_." She said, just quietly enough so that no one on shore could hear her.

He blinked and then said, "I only wish you would."

* * *

A/N: Thanks for the all the reviews ! It's what keeps me from typing as fast as I can to update. Sorry for the few grammar mistakes and such. :)

Tank- The setting is basically just all over the century places. Sakura is being described as someone not so prettily but in truth, she really is a beauty—it's just that being compared to Hinata, she feels that Hinata is just too beautiful so she doesn't trust her own worth of beauty. Continue to read on for more of her outshining beauty. ;)


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning Sakura slept late, after a confused and mostly sleepless night in which she alternately tossed with a fiery humiliation at the memory of Sasuke laughing down at her wax breasts, and flushed red at the memory of his kisses.

She was wakened by Riku, who told her that Miss Yamanaka's maid was inquiring whether her mistress might join her for breakfast.

"Lady Tsunade says you're not to leaven this room all day," Riku said importantly. "You're quite the heroine of the hour, I must say. Those youngbloods who caused your boat to capsize are properly ashamed of themselves and is planning some sort of gift."

"No!" Sakura said. "Surely not."

"Yes, because you were the only one who wasn't plucked out immediately, but actually had to swim across the lake. Like a mermaid, that's what everyone is saying."

"I wasn't in the least mermaid-like," Sakura objected. "The prince towed me along like a dead fish."

"No need to get into the particulars," Riku said. "Now Miss Yamanaka and Lady Tsunade, they were saved by the quick thinking of Lord Jaraiya. He righted the boat, and the only ones to fall in were yourself and the dog."

"Is Coco all right?"

"Lord Inuzuka dove straight off the boat to save you, but I gather you came up on the other side. So he saved Coco, because the prince had already swum after you. By all accounts, Lady Tsunade was screaming so loudly that they could hear her on shore."

"So Kiba saved the dog, rather than me," Sakura said grumpily, sitting up.

"Lady Tsunade wasn't very pleased. And she was very sharp with Lord Sabaku this morning," Riku confided, pulling open the curtains to reveal a beautiful sunny morning. "She told him at breakfast—where anyone could hear!—that she instructed him to save you, and her husband to save her dog, and could have had the courtesy to make an effort to follow her directions instead of just staying in the boat."

Sakura couldn't help smiling.

"And then Lord Jaraiya said that for his part he was dashed pleased that Sir Kiba had gone for the dog, because he didn't want to ruin his new boots. And then Lady Tsunade bonked him on the head with a kipper."

"_Very_ exciting," Sakura exclaimed. "I had no idea married life was so entertaining."

"Lady Tsunade's maid says it's always like that in their house. They squabble something terrible until he buys her a ruby, and it's all over. They're that fond of each other; anyone can tell."

"I suppose I should get up, if Ino wants to pay a visit," Sakura said, yawning again.

"I'll just put a wrapper on you and brush out your hair," Riku said. "She wouldn't expect you in a proper gown, not after the terrible shock you've had. Do you feel as if you have a fever, miss? The prince offered to send the castle's doctor."

"He has his own doctor?" Sakura said, swinging her legs out of bed.

"Came over with him on the boat," Riku said. She started giggling. "The 'ship of fools,' that's what Mr. Uzumaki calls it. Because the duke over there in foreign parts, he tossed out half his court, including the fool himself."

"I don't need a doctor," Sakura said, washing her face. "I'll have breakfast with Ino, but then I want a bath, Riku, and I mean to get dress. I don't feel in the least bit chilled."

"You mustn't bathe yet!" Riku said, alarmed. "You were shivering so much last night that I thought the bed might crack in half. Please sit down miss, and I'll brush out your hair. I'll tie it back with a ribbon for your breakfast with Miss Yamanaka, and then you must pop straight back into bed."

* * *

It was immediately clear that Ino considered their midnight adventure to have made them the best of friends. She sat down opposite Sakura at a small table Riku set before a roaring fire and proceeded to give a breathless rendition of what it felt like as the boat drew away in the black, black water, with Sakura nowhere to be seen.

"We knew then that you were _dead_," she said with thrilling emphasis. "Killed by that freezing water!"

"Luckily for me, I wasn't," Sakura said, taking another piece of buttered toast. She had ridden out, shivering, on a hundred chilly mornings, which likely injured her to the cold, though she didn't think Ino would understand if she tried to explain her hard-earned immunity.

"Lady Tsunade was on her feet," Ino continued, "desperately searching the water."

"Could you see Coco?"

"She was splashing alongside the boat, paddling really well. You should have seen how small that dog was after Lord Inuzuka rescued it, no bigger than a kitten with its wet fur. Lady Tsunade acted as if her own child had fallen in."

"So where was I?"

"You finally came up on the far side. You were very lucky not to have hit your head on the other boat. Everyone from that boat was in the water, though they came out again quickly, all but the prince. Lady Tsunade was the first to spot you, and she shrieked at him to fetch you, _this instant_." Ino giggled. "I'd never have imagined that anyone could order a prince to do something the way she did. And of course he obeyed and swam over to get you."

"How odd," Sakura said. "I felt as if it was just a moment before I found my way to the surface, and the boat was already moving away."

"It probably was," Ino said considering it. "We were being pulled off by the footman, of course, who didn't know what was happening. But at the time it seemed very slow, I assure you. When you didn't come back up, and the red and blue torchlight was bouncing off the water…even the prince looked horribly distressed."

"How could you see? Wasn't he in the water?"

"Yes, but Lady Tsunade called out that you were missing and I saw his eyes. My mother says that I'm never to go anywhere near the lake again. Not even during the ball."

"Don't tell me they're planning to do it again!"

"No one is allowed in the boats but servants who know how to swim," Ino said. "But it is already planned, so they're going ahead with it. The boats are going to be shooting off fireworks, which I must say sounds very pretty. I shall have to watch from the steps, though, because Mama is quite overwrought." She sounded wistful.

"Will you have the last piece of toast?" Sakura asked.

"No, thank you," Ino said. "I eat very little. You have it. You are at such a risk of getting sick; everyone is talking about it. After that terrible illness you had a few months ago, and now the shock and cold." She paused. "Though you look very well."

Sakura smiled at her. "I feel just fine."

"I didn't know you had such long hair and the color of it is just so unique," Ino said. "Why do you always wear a wig? Don't you find it terribly hot? I can't bear them myself."

"I like wigs."

"I hope you don't mind my comment," Ino said, "but I think your hair is lovely. All those different color shades of pink…it's just like a sunset. Better than that green wig, even though it _is_ fashionable."

Ino twiddled her fork for a moment. "It was so romantic when Lord Inuzuka went into the water after you. I wish you could have seen it. The boat righted itself and he shouted your name and then dove straight off the side. Though of course you weren't actually on that side."

"Who did that? Oh, Kibi," Sakura said. "It does sound romantic. My fiancé apparently has hidden depths." Frankly, she was surprised.

"They're all in love with you," Ino said. "Lord Sabaku as well."

"He's all yours," Sakura said promptly.

"I'm not sure…you're so amusing. You say such witty things." She looked across Sakura with her sweet seriousness and said, "I don't want you to think that I'm in love with Lord Sabaku because I'm not. And I'm not desperate to marry anyone."

"Neither am I," Sakura said, getting up to ring the bell. "You don't mind if I call for more cocoa, do you? I think that dunking made me ravenous."

"We didn't meeting during the season," Ino continues, "though I heard about you, of course. But no one told me you were so funny. I think that's why they're all in love with you."

Sakura burst into laughter. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"They're all in love with you," Ino repeated. "Lord Inuzuka, and Lord Sabaku, and the prince too. I saw his eyes, remember? They were wild with fear."

"_You_ have a natural gift for melodrama," Sakura said. "Oh good, there's Riku." She sent the maid to bring another round of cocoa and some more buttered toast as well.

Then she sat back down. "I've got the shivers just listening to you talk about the black, black water and the torchlight bouncing everywhere."

"It was awful," Ino said. "I kept imagining that a hand draped in seaweed had come up and dragged you into the murky depths."

Sakura laughed again. "That lake doesn't even have fish in it; it's just a pond fed by an underground stream. There aren't many weeds!"

"You never know what lives in an underground stream," Ino said, her blue eyes growing even bigger.

"Minnows, maybe," Sakura said. "No one's in love with me."

Her tone must have been convincing, because after a second Ino said, "Well, Lord Inuzuka is, of course."

She'd forgotten her fiancé again. "Except Kibi," Sakura agreed.

"You're so lucky. I would love to have a fiancé like Lord Inuzuka. He's so considerate, and young, and handsome."

"Well, so is Lord Sabaku," Sakura said, rather surprised.

"Actually, he is older."

"But he is very handsome, and kind. Steady," Sakura added.

Ino nodded. "I know. My mother says that too."

"But you're not excited by steady and kind."

"He'll make a good husband, I'm sure. He didn't dive in after you, though."

"A black mark against him," Sakura agreed.

"He said afterwards that he couldn't see you, and so what would have been the point? Which is logical, but not what a woman wants to hear, particularly if she were dead."

"Maybe he would have plunged in for you, just not for me," Sakura offered.

"I doubt it. I think he feels sorry for me, which is not the same as the kind of mad adoration that Lord Inuzuka obviously feels for you." She hesitated. "Did you hear what…what happened to me?"

Could she mean the fork? "No," Sakura said. "Your mother did speak of your father in the past tense…"

"First he died, just before my first season, and then my aunt died the next year, and then my great-aunt died." Ino's soft little face took on an edge. "They ought to make an exception for mourning when a person just has to make her debut. People talk about me as if I'm an old maid and I barely had one season!"

"Nonsense," Sakura said, pushing away the memory of Tsunade's casual description of Ino as an octogenarian. "I'm –" She just caught herself before she confessed her age. "I look older than you do. That's all that matters."

"Things were going very well last year," Ino said, sipping her cocoa, "and then an awful thing happened with Lord Kabuto. Have you met him?"

Sakura shook her head.

"My mother was so affronted that she took me to the country after I'd been to only two balls. So then I had to start all over this year."

It had to be the forked. "What happened?" Sakura asked.

Ino rolled her eyes. "He's barking mad. He said…You may not understand this, Sakura, but he told everyone that I _pawed_ him. In a private area!"

"No!" Sakura noticed that Ino was using her actual _name_ instead of Hinata's.

"Yes, he did. And the truth was that he had tried to kiss me. I wouldn't have minded so much, but he pressed against me in the most revolting way. I twisted away and told him he was a repellent snake. It made him angry and he grabbed me down—down there, with his _hand_."

Even given Ino's talent for melodrama, the man was odious. "What a snake," Sakura said. "We had a baker in the village like that once. My father had to throw him out of the county."

"He wouldn't have done it if my father was alive," Ino said. "Because my father would have skewered him. At any rate, we had carried our plates of apricot tart onto the balcony, so I snatched my fork and stuck him in the hand. Since my father wasn't around to skewer him, I suppose you could say I did it myself. But next thing I knew, his story was everywhere."

"You should have stuck him in the breeches," Sakura said.

"He was telling a lie, but no one believed me except my mother, of course. So we had to retire to the country. And this year"—she looked rather miserable—"well, someone like Lord Sabaku is so logical and kind that of course he doesn't listen to that sort of rumor."

"Horrible," Sakura said. "That is horrible. I knew the moment I met you that it couldn't be true because—"

"So you did hear it too!" Ino said, and she burst into tears.

Fortunately Sakura was accustomed to tears after living with Hinata, so she poured her another cup of cocoa, and gave her a pat on the hand. And left her to it. With Hinata, every expression of sympathy just prolonged her weeping.

Sure enough, Ino wiped her eyes and apologized. "I'm nervous," she said, "because Kabuto arrives today, and I haven't seen him since last year."

Sakura narrowed her eyes. "He's coming to the castle?"

"Yes, today," Ino said damply. "Isn't that bad luck? I managed to avoid him all seasons because my mother bribed one his footman, so we always knew what he was doing. But now my mother says we can't leave because Lord Sabaku is close to proposing to me." She didn't look terribly happy about that prospect.

"I like Lord Sabaku," Sakura said.

"So do I, of course," Ino said, sighing. "It's just—well—he's not exactly romantic, is he? He would never bring me flowers unless they happened to be in his garden and he tripped over them."

"You have quite an imagination," Sakura said.

"I can just see his poor wife," Ino said. "She'll be waiting expectantly for her birthday to arrive, hoping that he'll bring her a diamond tiara or at the very least, a beautiful shawl, and he'll turn up with a tea cozy. Tears will come to her eyes, but since she really loves him—and it's not his fault—she'll swallow her sadness."

"And buy herself a beautiful shawl, I would hope," Sakura put in. "You're a superb storyteller! I could almost see her weepy eyes. Why don't you just put about the real story of Kabuto? I'm sure you could convince people."

Ino shook her head. "My mother feels strongly that a lady should never mention such matters. She feels everything so deeply. In fact, she's not getting out of bed today because she feels so distressed over my near death last night."

Sakura raised an eyebrow.

"I know…most people think you nearly died instead of me." Ino sighed.

"If you told my godmother, Tsunade, she could squash Kabuto," Sakura said.

"I love the way she calls her husband sugarplum," Ino said. "It's just so—"

"Romantic," Sakura said laughing.

"I read too many novels," Ino said shamefacedly.

"I haven't read many, but the villain always gets his punishment, as I understand it. And that's what's going to happen to Kabuto, I promise you. Think of Tsunade as being like a fairy godmother: She can wave her magic wand and take care of that nasty little snake."

"How I'd love to see him turned into a turnip," Ino said.

"Just watch," Sakura said. "She'll make turnip mash out of him."

* * *

"You will be taking a large party rabbit hunting this afternoon," Naruto said, catching Sasuke by the arm after the lunch meal.

"That I will not," Sasuke said instantly.

"What's got into you?" Naruto demanded. "You've never been the most biddable person, but I'd prefer you didn't go stark raving, if you wouldn't mind. I have a castle full of people, and your aunt's reader has already driven half the ladies into fits by handing out fortunes like confetti, and all of them depressing."

"You want depressing, go talk to my uncle. I had to listen to him for an hour last night as he sobbed—sobbed!—over the failure of his naval spectacle."

"It's my fault," Naruto said. "I'd watched them practice it over and over, and I simply didn't picture the timing's being altered by drunk passengers."

"Well, no one drowned," Sasuke said. "I have it from Miss Yamanaka, who breakfasted with Sakura, that the lady is just fine so no harm done."

"That being the case, would you get on your bloody shooting gear and take some of these men off my hand?"

"No. Ask Madara to go in my place, will you?"

"I'll see if I can grab him out of the pigsty," Naruto said, turning away.

When Sasuke was sure that Naruto was well out of hearing, he snatched a young footman and gave him a number of explicit, rapid instructions.

Then he went to this study, locked the door, and walked over to a small painting hanging on the far wall. In the picture's background, a battle rages; in the foreground, a songbird perched on a low branch. On the ground below lay a suit of armor, abandoned just where the knight had managed to kick it off. All there was to be seen of him was a lifeless foot in the lower right. And the bird sang on, his hard, alert eye showing total disregard for the crumpled warrior foolish enough to die under his tree.

It was the only painting Sasuke had brought with him from home, the painting that summed up his hatred of the patterned violence and sporadic warfare that marked all small principalities including Itachi's.

With an easy crook of his finger under the frame, he pulled the painting out from the wall. Behind it was a simple lever. One yank and a door opened in the wooden paneling, revealing an extremely dusty corridor.

Naruto and he had decided that the benefits of ordering someone to clean the corridor were not worth the potential consequences, inasmuch as the existence of a corridor that ran inside the thick walls of the castle was not so terrible in itself, but the fact that the corridor offered peepholes into most bedchambers?

Dusty it was, and dusty it remained.

Sasuke set off, dismissing from his mind the fact that Naruto would be infuriated to learn that he had decided to reveal the existence of the corridor.

He kept pausing, peering into bedchambers to orient himself. Gold hangings meant the so-called queen's bedchamber, consigned to Lady Dagimo. He walked past four more peepholes, calculating his location, and then looked again. He blinked and then hastily walked on. If his guests were choosing not to nap after lunch, it certainly wasn't his affair.

He skipped four more, tried again, and knew he had the room, because there was Fusion, curled in a tight ball in the middle of the bed. He didn't hear anything, which suggested that Sakura's maid was not in attendance.

He put his mouth to the peephole and said, "Sakura."

Nothing.

He said it more loudly. "Sakura!"

There was a muttered curse word that made him grin, and then the sound of someone walking over to the bedroom door and opening it. He couldn't see her, but he imagined her staring into the corridor.

She closed the door again, rather more slowly than she had opened it, and he tried again. "Come to the fireplace and look on the right."

"I hate people who spy," she said in a loud voice.

"I'm not spying!" he protested. "All I can see is your bed."

A withering silence answered him.

"Fusion looks comfortable," He said.

"Fusion is always comfortable. Why are you spying on a lady's bed?"

"I came to ask you to go for a drive with me. In secret."

"I gathered the secret part. How many people traipse through that corridor at night?"

"No one," he assured her. "Ever. You're the only person other than Naruto who knows it exists."

"This is Konoha," she pointed out. "You didn't build the castle yourself. Probably half your guests know of its existence." Suddenly an eye presented itself before him. It was a beautiful eye, pale green like the light that comes through a stained glass window, and ringed in brown.

"Is that you?" she asked suspiciously.

"Of course it's me."

"Should I pull a lever to let you out?"

"There's no entrance to any of the bedrooms."

"Just for peeping," Sakura muttered. "How distasteful."

"I've got a carriage downstairs, and a picnic. I told the footman that I would take one of my aunts to see the old nunnery."

"A nunnery sounds like a barrelful of monkey," she continued, off to the right. "And your aunt, will she enjoy this excursion?"

"Just the two of us," Sasuke said, and held his breath. No proper young lady would do it. Ever. No chaperone, no maid, no aunt?

Sakura's eye reappeared. "Are you planning to seduce me in the carriage?" The green looked a little darker with displeasure.

"I'd love to," he said regretfully, "but I wouldn't be able to live with my own conscience, so I won't."

"Have you a conscience when it comes to people like me? I thought you and Naruto had summed up my circumstances."

"You may be illegitimate, though I don't think you're a swineherd's daughter, for all your intimate knowledge of piggeries."

"I'm not," she said, and disappeared again. He could hear her walking about. "If I were a swineherd's daughter would you seduce me?"

"I've actually never seduced a maiden," he said.

"How virtuous of you."

"It's likely not a reflection of virtue," he admitted. "Princes hardly ever managed to be alone, you know. When I was younger, I would have gladly cavorted with a maiden of any variety, but I wasn't given a chance."

The eye reappeared. "As long as you promise on the shambles of your princely honor that you won't kiss me. I find your kisses distracting."

That was a facer. "_You_ could kiss me," he suggested.

"I won't. I need to find a husband, and your fiancé—is she arriving today?"

"She has landed in Konoha," Sasuke said reluctantly. "Probably she'll arrive tomorrow."

"No kisses," Sakura stated.

He nodded and realized she couldn't see him.

"The truth is that I am going mad in this room. Ino brought me some dismal tripe to read. I don't care much for novels. And Tsunade won't let me go out because she says if I appear too healthy people will start questioning the illness that made me thinner."

"I brought a veil, so no one will recognize you."

"A veil?"

"My aunt wears them all the time. A mourning veil. I'll meet you at your bedchamber door in five minutes."

"Can I bring Fusion? I could hide him under the veil."

"No. My aunt never yaps."

* * *

The woman who emerged from Sakura's bedchamber was swathed in black from her head to her toes.

Sasuke offered her his arm, feeling a ridiculous pleasure run though him. "Be careful not to trip," he said as they walked down the corridor.

The veil tremble as Sakura shook her head. "I'm having trouble walking; I can't see where I'm going. How does she manage this?"

"She's been in mourning a long time," Sasuke said

"How long?"

"Forty years, give or take ten."

Silence.

"You're thinking she's overly mournful."

"I would never characterize a princess in a negative light," Sakura said primly, though he knew damn well that was a lie.

"It was actually very clever," he told her. "My father would have found her another husband, but she fell into such a cataclysmic fit of grief that no one would have her."

"I gather her grief wasn't all it could have been?"

"My brothers and I loved to go to her chambers. We would play speculation and bet each other with cherry stones. She gave me my first taste of cognac, and lots of very good advice."

"What would she have to say about swineherds' daughters?"

"Stay away from them," he said promptly.

"My father would undoubtedly say the same of nearly married princes," she said.

They were coming down the grand stairs now. "A last cluster of footmen and we're free," he whispered.

"Should I hobble?"

"No need. Naruto isn't here, and he's the only one who might notice. I'm going to put you in the dog cart and take the reins myself. I'll tell you when we're out of sight of the front door. We'll leave the road immediately."

The moment he gave the word, Sakura pulled up the veil and wrestled it off her head. "That is _hot_," she cried. She had a high flush and—

"Another wig?" he asked disappointed. The night before, she'd been so drenched that he hadn't been able to tell exactly what color her hair was.

"I always wear a wig," she said primly. But then she looked at him and laughed, and he felt a bolt of desire so fierce that he almost dropped the reins. "My hair is my only glory, so I'm saving it for when I can truly be myself, Sakura rather than Hinata."

"You're Sakura today," he said.

"No, I'm not. The only reason I'm out driving with you is that Hinata is a bit of a trollop," she said with a wicked little smile. "I myself would never do anything like this."

"What do you do instead of trolloping?" He asked with not a little curiosity.

"This and that," she said lightly.

There was a bit of silence as he negotiated the dog cart off the road and onto a little track that wound around the castle, just under the walls. "What sort of things?" he asked. "Taking care of pigs?"

"Actually, no pigs," she said. "That's a cheering thought, isn't it? If I get to feeling downtrodden I can just contemplate what might have been, in short, the pigs."

"Do you feel downtrodden?"

"Now and then," she said airily. "I have such a ferocious temper that people tread on me at their peril. Besides, my godmother is taking me in hand, and next time you see me, I'll be respectably living in Suna with Tsunade at my side."

Lady Tsunade must be giving her a dowry, Sasuke thought, which was decent of her. Though he hated the idea of Sakura flirting with other men; in fact, it made him want to snatch her and—

Act like the bad prince in a fairy tale.

Damn.

"You look a bit hot," Sakura said. "Where is this nunnery anyway?"

"We're not actually going to a nunnery. We're going around the side of the castle, and we'll enter one of the gardens, a secret one."

"A secret garden…how on earth did you find it? Don't tell me that a fairy led the way."

"I was given a key. It's merely because the gates opens out to the castle grounds, rather than the courtyard, so no one bothers to go there. Even Naruto hasn't investigated."

They drove in a circle around the castle for a few more minutes. Then Sasuke pulled up the pony and jumped out, throwing the reins over a small bush. He grabbed a basket from the cart and turned to give Sakura a hand, but she was already out of the cart.

He wanted—what he wanted was ridiculous. He wanted to be blatantly possessive, to pluck her from her carriage, and carry her to the gate. He wanted to throw down a blanket and pull up her skirts right there in the open air where anyone could see them.

He wanted to—

He'd lost his mind.

That was the explanation, he thought, walking Sakura, who was hopping about and picking flowers like a five-year-old. Naruto was right. The whole question of marriage, of Princess Tenari's imminent arrival, had rattled his mental state.

He was about to get marry. _Marry_. Which made it all the more unfortunate that—he stopped and rearranged his breeches—there was no one he wanted to be with but one illegitimate daughter of a swineherd, gathering daisies a few feet away.

It was just like a fairy tale, except that life wasn't like fairy tales, and princes didn't get to be with swineherds' daughters, not unless they broke every social convention they had learned in their life.

And he wasn't going to.

Even though the look of Sakura's body as she bent over to pick another flower made him so hungry and possessive that he found his fingers were shaking. He put the basket down and let fly a volley of silent curses, his favorite method for regaining control.

It had worked in his brother's court; it worked now.

"Let's go in, shall we?" he called, walking to the door and unlocking it. The brick wall was high and very old, so old that he could see it crumbling in places where ivy was pulling down.

He pushed the door open to a tangle of yarrow, butterbur, and purple comfrey. Mixed in here and there were the nodding heads of cabbage roses, petals thrown to the ground as if a young girl had been scattering birdseed.

"Oh!" Sakura said. "It's wonderful!" She ran forward, holding up her skirts. "It really _is_ a secret garden. There are secret statues too. See, there's one, almost hidden in that clump of sweetbriar."

"Probably a goddess," Sasuke said, as Sakura pulled back the ivy trailing over pale stone shoulders. Together they pulled down a clump of ivy that hung over the statue's face.

"Oh," Sakura said, her voice hushed. "She's beautiful."

"She's crying," Sasuke said, surprised.

Sakura reached forward and wrenched at another tangled strand of ivy. "She's an angel."

The young angel's wings were folded; she looked down, her face white as new snow and sadder than winter.

"Oh no," Sasuke said, backing up a step. "This isn't a secret garden, it's a graveyard. They might have told me that."

"Then where are the graves?" Sakura said. "Look, there's nothing at her feet but a pedestal. Wouldn't the family be buried in the chapel?"

"Yes," Sasuke said with relief. "But why on earth is she here otherwise?"

Sakura was bending over and pulling ivy from the pedestal. Suddenly she started giggling.

"What?"

"It _is_ a graveyard," she said, laughing even harder.

"Remind me never to escort you on holy ground," Sasuke said, bending over. He started reading aloud. "_In loving memory of_…who? I can't read it."

"My _dearest Rascal_," Sakura finished for him. She pulled aside a bit of sweetbriar and moved around the pedestal. "And not just Rascal either. Here's Dumo and"—she moved again—"Fusion! Oh my, I have to bring my Fusion here. It'll be like visiting the tombs of one's ancestor's in West Abbey."

"It appears that I have my own graveyard," Sasuke said. "If I had a pack of them the way you do, I could measure out their little graves while they were still alive. I'd start with Fusion, since he's likely to die of fright any day now. I'll show this place to my uncle; maybe he'll feel better if we plant a statue out here of a pickle-eating dog."

She poked him. "You're ridiculous."

He reached out and pulled off her wig. It came with a scattering of hairpins and a shriek. He plopped it on top of the long-suffering angel.

"Nice," he said with satisfaction, not meaning the angel, who had taken on the look of a tipsy trollop in the black wig. The sun slanted over the rosy old bricks and loved Sakura's hair, every strawberry angry strands of it.

She was yelling at him, of course. No one ever yelled at him. No one but Sakura…and that was because she was from a different class, a class that didn't know that you could never scold a prince.

He'd never ever been scolded when he was nothing more than a princeling. His nurse, and his brothers' nurses, knew their place. He used to push, when he was a lad, and try to make the servants angry. No one rebuked him, even when he set the nursery rug on fire.

Only Naruto had looked at him with disgust when he saw the rug and told him he was a right fool. He had struck him, of course, and Naruto hit him back, and they ended up rolling on the ground, and afterward he felt better because a child knows when he deserves a scold, and if he doesn't get it…

Well.

If someone had raked his brother Itachi over the coals once in a while, Sasuke thought, he wouldn't have been so vulnerable to that infernal friar who happened by with his promise of gilded halo. Itachi knew inside—as they all knew—that he didn't deserve all he had.

The truth of it made you distrust people, because they lied…in Itachi's case, it made him afraid about what would happen after his death.

Sakura didn't lie. It was fascinating to hear the real anger in her voice.

And that anger, perversely, caused a rise in his breeches.

Or perhaps it was her hair. Such an extravagant color that makes one want to dive in and wrap it around oneself. "I just wanted to see your crowning glory," he explained, breaking through her rant. "You're right. It's beautiful."

"I _told_ you," Sakura said, but he broke in when she took a breath.

"I know. You were saving it for the moment when you meet Prince Charming himself. Rubbish." She had her hands on her hips and she was glaring at him like a proper fishwife. Sasuke felt a surge of happiness.

"It may be rubbish to you," Sakura said fiercely. "But I told you my reasons and you—you simple rode over them roughshod, because you think that anything you do is acceptable."

He blinked at her, her words sinking in.

"Don't you?" she demanded. "In your narrow, arrogant little world, you can snatch off a woman's wig simply because you want to, and you could tear off butterfly's wings too, no doubt, and father children on milkmaids, and—"

"Good gawd," Sasuke said. "How did we get from wigs to milkmaids and butterflies?"

"It's all about you," she said, glaring at him.

The ridiculous thing was that even though she was saying terrible things about him—all true, except for the butterflies and the illegitimate children—he just felt stiffer, more like snatching another one of those kisses and not stopping there, but tumbling her onto a patch of grass.

"Don't think I misunderstand that look in your eye," she said, and her own eyes got even sharper.

"What am I thinking?" Damned if his voice didn't come out of his chest in a rumble, the kind of husky sound that a man makes when—

"You're thinking that you're going to break your own promise," she said, folding her arms over her breasts. "You're about to persuade yourself that I really _want_ you to kiss me, even though you promised you wouldn't. Because in your world—"

"I've heard that part," he said. "About my narrow world—Do you want me to kiss you?"

He felt as if the whole world held its breath for that second, as if the aimless sparrows shut their beaks, and the bees hovered, listening.

"For goodness sake," she said with disgust, turning away. "You'll never understand, will you?"

He understood that the curve of her neck was somehow more delicious than that of any woman he had seen in years. As she had her back turned, he quickly rearranged his breeches again. "You think I'm a jackass," he said helpfully. "You're probably right too because I promised, I won't kiss you. On the other hand, I never promised not to remove your wig. You instructed me, as regards to your wig, which to my mind is something quite different from giving my word."

"You're splitting hairs." She kept her back turned to him, obstinate thing that she was. Yet somehow the delicate line of back was even more seductive than the curve of her bosom. He would like to fall on his knees and trace each bump of her spine with his tongue.

He shouldn't be thinking that, Sasuke realized dimly. She wasn't for him. Not for him…not for him…not for him. Sakura bent over to peer more closely at something hidden in the grasses, and his mind presented him with a picture of himself kissing her waist, then slipping down, down…

"Shall we have our lunch?" he said, growling out the words.

"There's another marble here," Sakura said, pulling at a tangle of ivy and weeds.

Sasuke grunted and came to her side. He wrenched so hard that a great bunch of ivy came loose, roots and all, sending dirt and leaves flying into the air.

"A statue of a child this time," Sakura said, dropping on her knees.

The irresponsible, lustful side of Sasuke's body approved of that. Yes…on her knees…

He turned away and stamped back outside the garden to fetch the picnic basket, cursing his lust.

Naruto was right. He was chasing after Sakura only because he couldn't marry her, and he couldn't bed her either. Because he was an idiot, in short.

And probably she was right too. He was a self-important ass who snatched off her wig just to suit himself. He was getting as bad as Itachi. Naruto had kept him in line for most of their lives, belting him when he started to believe that his title meant anything…

But had he turned into an ass anyway, when Naruto wasn't watching? Probably.

* * *

Sakura cleared the last weeds from the statue of the child. She was a chubby toddler, sitting on the ground in a smock, and laughing. "Hello there," Sakura murmured to the little stone girl. "I wonder…"

She pulled ivy from her pedestal and found a simple inscription: _Merry, Darling_.

"Your gloves are ruined," came a voice over her shoulder.

"My maid brought along boxes and boxes of gloves," she said. "Look, Sasuke. Isn't she a dear? She has ringlets."

"And wings," Sasuke pointed out. "She's a baby angel."

"She reminds me of the cupids in the north corridor. Perhaps she was made by the Italian sculptor stolen from the Land of Thunder, the one who escaped in a butter churn."

"Does one erect a statue just for a kitten? My guess would be that this is a memorial, if not the actual grave itself." He bent down and brushed away a head of yarrow that nodded against the child's cheek.

"That's so terribly sad," Sakura said.

"There's an instinctive wish to remember the child playing and laughing," he said. "When we were excavating in the Land of Smoke two years ago, we discovered that the tombs of children were full of toys so that they could play happily in the afterlife."

Sakura nodded. "Not so different, I suppose, from putting a statue of Merry actually playing in the garden."

"I have a little pot upstairs that I've been working on. It came from a tomb, and it originally held knucklebones. Presumably they were the boy's own toys. I'll show it to you someday."

"It sounds fascinating," Sakura said, meaning it.

"My old professor, Taiya, is an arrant blockhead, and threw out the pot, knucklebones and all. In fact, he had the men simply throw dirt in the tomb after he discovered there wasn't any gold inside."

"Is he interested only in gold?"

"In truth, no. But he's interested in fame. He wants the big find, the exciting discovery. Something as trifling as the grave of a poor child would never interest him. That's what bothers me about his excavation of the Land of Water. He'll be rampaging about, looking for Dido's graves, and doubtless destroying all sorts of interesting artifacts."

His voice had moved away again and she looked over her shoulder to find that he was spreading a blanket in a relatively clear spot of grass.

"Come and eat," he called.

She scrambled to her knees and came to join him. "It's a feast," she said with satisfaction.

"Take off those filthy gloves," Sasuke said. He waved a chicken leg at her.

"Mmmm," Sakura said, stripping off her gloves. "Things smell so much better in the outdoors; have you noticed?" She bit into the chicken.

He didn't answer, just handed her a glass of wine that slid, light and faintly sparking, down her throat.

She didn't notice until she'd eaten the chicken leg, a meat tartlet, a piece of mouthwatering cheddar cheese, and a pickled quail's egg that he hadn't answered. In fact, he wasn't even eating; he was just propped up on his elbow watching her. And handing her food.

She narrowed her eyes at him over a piece of almond cake.

"What?" she demanded.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Nothing."

"What are you up to?"

"Trying to fatten you up," he said readily enough. "You're too thin, even though you weren't sick in the spring."

"I've never been plump," she stated.

"Ah, but you need more than that gorgeous mop of hair to catch a husband," he said infuriatingly. "The best Konohawomen are soft. Luscious, really. Look at Lady Tsunade, your godmother. She's like a gorgeous over baked loaf, even at her age."

Sakura ate the rest of her cake and scolded herself silently for midnight that, apparently, he didn't find her luscious.

Sasuke had rolled over and was lying on his back, legs crossed, eating a chicken leg. His breeches clung to muscular thighs; her eyes drifted to broader shoulders. His eyes were squinted shut against the sun, and his eyelashes lay on his cheeks like an invitation.

"I didn't mean to say that you ripped the wings of butterflies," she said abruptly, pulling her mind away from the prince's princely attributes.

"What about the illegitimate children I had with fields of milkmaids? Did you mean that," he asked interestedly, though he didn't bother to open his eyes. Instead he just reached out a hand. "May I have one of those little pasties?"

She put a meat tart in his hand. "I would imagine that princes might have any number of bastard children," she said. "What woman could resist you? And I didn't mean that as a compliment to your charms."

"I heard you," he said. He was silent for a moment.

"Not that I mean you would have to employ force," she added, feeling a qualm of conscience. He was so beautiful that he didn't even need a title to have women at his feet.

"I know." He held out his hand again, broad but slim-fingered, a powerful man's hand. She put a second tart squarely on his palm.

"My cousin Shin," Sasuke said, "has a number of bastards. He's a pretty fellow."

"You're—"She broke off just in time.

"Not as pretty," he said. "Shin is more of a prince than I am. You should see him when he's ruffled and bewigged. He'd drive you into a blind fury, no doubt about it."

"Really?"

"He looks like someone in a fairy tale, and he acts like someone in one of Aretino's books," Sasuke said, turning over and propping himself up on his elbow.

"Aretino? I seem to remember the name, but I'm not sure…"

"You definitely don't remember the name; he's not an author known to ladies. Aretino was an Italian who specialized in books of naughty drawings that taught me a great deal as a boy. My father had a copy translated, though I have to say the language is fairly irrelevant. Ask your husband about his work someday."

Sakura swallowed a grin. She knew exactly where she remembered that name from. She's discovered Aretino's _School of Venus_ in her father's library two years ago. The illustrations were very revelatory.

"Here, have some more wine," Sasuke said. It poured into her glass like stained glass turned liquid, golden, fragrant, heady.

"Shin's looks, together with his title, have had a bad effect on him." he smirked. "I know you'll have a hard time agreeing with me that a title could be an evil influence on a man."

She laughed aloud. Sasuke making fun of himself and his title was devastating. She felt a ping on the area of her heart and pushed it away.

"He practiced on the household women from the time he was fourteen, until he started practicing on the countryside at large. My father thought it was funny."

"You didn't."

"Shin could never get his mind around the fact that there was the chance that the women were afraid of losing their positions if they didn't comply. It's all fun to him: He sweet-talks them and undoubtedly gives pleasure in bed. But…"

"What has happened to his children?"

Sasuke shrugged. "We have a few of them in the castle with us. Along with their mothers, of course. When Itachi castle-cleaned, he threw fallen women out regardless of who tripped them up."

"That's just wrong," Sakura said, biting down hard on a piece of candied pear. "But you don't have any children of your own." She knew it instinctively. Sasuke was as arrogant a male as a male could be—but the whole castle stood at his shoulder as evidence that he didn't duck responsibilities.

"Naruto would kill me if I started producing false pennies," he said lazily. "Otherwise I'd be seducing milkmaid right now." And he gave her an exaggerated leer that left no space for misunderstanding about the milkmaid in question.

Sakura reached over and snatched another bit of pear from his hand. "So Naruto has kept you on the straight and narrow. I like it. He's a good man."

Sasuke drained his glass. "Believe it or not, Sakuracha, I like to make love to women who won't be hurt by my seduction. Otherwise…"He gave her a smile that the devil would love to imitate. "Otherwise I'd have you flat on your back in the grass, and you would let me have my wicked ways with you, title, or no. Even if I was a swineherd."

Her mouth fell open. "Charming! You arrogant beast!"

"I'm falling into the habit of honesty." He leaned closer. "You're the one who told me that Konoha people favor uncomfortable truths."

"I fail to see what that has to do with anything. _You_ are not from Konoha. And you're not irresistible either."

"Let's play Konoha and trade uncomfortable truths. You can tell me one first. Or rather, since that's your stock-in-trade, tell me another."

"What are you talking about?"

"Tell me something that you think I don't want to hear."

"There's so much that you don't want to hear," she said, letting a touch of mockery edge her voice.

"If you're going to tell me that I'm outrageously handsome, I know it's not true."

"You did say _truths_," Sakura said. His nose was too large for outrageous beauty, anyway.

He laughed. "True enough, hard-hearted little Sakuracha. So go on, then."

"I think you're…" She hesitated.

"Arrogant?" he supplied.

"You already know that."

"Worse?"

"I think that you will break you wife's heart," she said, coming out with it.

She surprised him. He turned his head, and his hair fell out of its queue, and curled by his shoulder. "Why?"

"Because you intend to leave her, and go dig up this ancient city that you told me about. I can see, anyone could see, that you're just biding your time here."

"I told you that myself. You can't claim particular insight into my character."

"You're going to leave for the Land of Water," she said steadily, "and that's not right. It's not honoring the vows of marriage."

He raised an eyebrow.

"To have and to hold," she said. "In sickness or in health. With you off in the Land of Water, how would you know if your wife fell ill? If she died in childbirth?"

"Her name is Tenari. And I wouldn't leave her if she were breeding!"

"How would you know? Women often don't know for months. To be even more blunt, are you planning not to bed Tenari for three months before you skive off for the Land of Water? Because that's problematic in a different way."

He sat up. "There are women who don't want a husband sniffing around their petticoats all the time, you know. You seem to have a very romantic view of marriage in mind, and believe me, it's not one that I see among royal families."

"I've read about dynastic marriages. Look at our own King. He never loved his wife; they lived separately, and by some accounts, he loved some other woman better than she."

"Now you're shocking me," he said lightly. But his eyes avoided her.

"You won't do it," she said, suddenly realizing where she'd been blind. "You won't be able to leave her."

"To leave?"

She nodded.

"I certainly will leave," he said, with all the stubbornness of a very small boy insisting that he wants to ride his pony again.

"No, you won't. It's not in you, Sasuke-the-Prince."

"Sods to that," he said, and with one quick move, he pounced on her, flattening her onto the blanket.

"Uhg!" Sakura said, as the breath escaped from her lungs.

He just looked down at her as if the heat of his body wasn't burning into her limbs.

"This is shocking," Sakura said, sounding like a silly, bleating lamb. But it was taking all her energy not to curl up against him and purr. Rather than wrap her arms around his neck, she made herself shove at his shoulders. "You, sir, are a regenerate!"

He bent his head to one side and she felt his breath against her cheek. "Regenerate? _Regenerate_. Hmmm."

"Get off of me," she said between clenched teeth. "You promised."

"I promised not to kiss you," he agreed readily. "And I won't." His head dipped as she pushed against at his shoulder. "We _de_generates don't bother with kisses." Then softly, wickedly, a wet tongue slid across the place of her cheek. "Or did you mean that I'm a _renegade_?"

"Oh!" A shiver went straight down Sakura's body, a kind of warning, followed instantly by a sweep of warmth. "Get off me!" she squeaked. "You promised not—"

His tongue swept to her neck and she couldn't help it, she squirmed against his hardness and a little whimper broke from her lips.

"Are your kisses like your hair?" The question was so soft that she almost didn't hear it, lost in a sensual haze. "For one man only…saved for the man you'll marry?"

"Yes, I'm saving both of them," she said, gasping a bit, trying to pull herself together. Somehow her arms were caught between them so she couldn't push him away the way she meant to.

"What about licks?" he asked.

She scarcely heard him over the wild beating of her heart. The very smell of him was intoxicating. Who knew that men—or was it only princes?—smelled like this, like secret spice with a touch of leather and soap?

"It's preposterous to think that seeing your hair will delay your future domestic bliss," Sasuke was saying into the curve of her neck, "It's absurd." His whisper burned her skin, sending little quakes down her body.

"Isn't it?" he said, raising his head and looking down at her. His eyes shone with a kind of dangerous pleasure. She knew it was dangerous, and yet—

"I suppose," she said, wondering what exactly she was agreeing to.

"Rank superstition," he said. His lips feathered along the curve of her cheek. "And don't think this is a kiss, Sakura, because it's not. It's rot to feel that you can't show your hair to anyone until you're trotting about under your own name."

She gasped. He was, his lips were, caressing her ear. "Oh!" She couldn't help turning her head to the side so he could…

"You like that," Sasuke said, his voice husky, melodic. The voice of the devil, Sakura thought dimply, but she didn't care. "If I promise not to corrupt you, Sakura, may I kiss you? Please?"

He was all enticing male weight and sweet voice, but Sakura fought to think clearly. Did it matter if she kissed a prince in a garden? Would it change the fact that she was going to find a good man and marry him?

She didn't think it would. Not a kiss. If it stopped with a kiss.

"You mustn't seduce me," she said, and then stiffened at the sound of her own voice, somehow dropped into a deep and sensuous register that she'd never heard before.

He reacted to the sound too. His body seemed heavier on hers all of a sudden. He pushed up on his elbows, her arms were free, but didn't strike him, or push him away. Instead they just stared at each other, there in the sunlit cloister surrounded by tangle of wildflowers and a few-half eaten meat pies.

"I do not want you to seduce me," she said, drawing on years of striking clear bargain with tradesmen. She had to make it clear so that he didn't just swoop over her with all that princely beauty. "I am—I am a _virgin_ and I intend to be so on my bridal night."

Sasuke nodded, and a lock of hair fell over his eyes again. He was so beautiful, so starkly masculine, that her throat closed and she couldn't remember what else she had to say.

"I will not take your virginity," he said, his voice steady. Then his mouth quirked and he brushed his lips over hers again. "Even if you beg me to."

"Arrogant pig," she muttered. "I'm not your entertainment, Sasuke. I can't imagine why you're here with me, but I know that you should be in your castle with your guests."

"For some reason, I'm mad about your kisses, Sakura." His eyes caught hers, and she stilled the way a rabbit does in front of a cheerful fox. "I don't know what it is. I can't stop thinking about you. Kissing you was the first thing I thought about this morning when I woke up," he said conversationally.

She blinked at him.

"I had been dreaming about our kiss in the boat, when you were wet and cradled in my arms."

"You make me sound like a prize trout!"

"I would have liked to lick off every drop of lake water," he said, his lips feathering along her cheek again. "If you were mine, I would have bundled you up and then slowly unwrapped you by the fire."

Sakura tried to find words, but they seemed to be lost in a storm of sensation: the rough timbre of his voice, the thrilling pressure of his body, even the random tune of a lark woven together into a spell that kept her still.

"I woke up this morning," Sasuke said, "thinking of nothing more than rolling over and pulling you into my arms and kissing you again. Kissing: only kissing. As if I were a green boy of fourteen. In case you don't realize it, Sakura, kissing is not a man's usual inclination in the morning."

She frowned at him.

"Oh for Merlin's sake," he said, "what a virgin you are."

"There's nothing wrong with being a virgin," she said stoutly. "Now if you're done with reminiscing over your bawdy nightmares, would you mind getting up? You're treating me like a feather mattress."

"If I were treating you like a feather mattress, Sakura—and believe me, there's nothing I'd rather do—you'd be crying out with pleasure."

Sakura snorted. "Is there no limit to your vanity?"

"Are you daring me to prove myself?"

"No!" she said instantly, and she gave such a decisive shove that he rolled to the side and she managed to scramble away.

Sasuke didn't bother to rise; he just sprawled at her feet, a boneless, laughing man. He didn't look like a prince at the moment. He looked as eager and alive as any Konohaman gone a-courting.

"You—" she said, and stopped, shaking her head.

"Lost my mind," he supplied. "Naruto says so too." He put his hands behind his head and grinned at her. "All I think about is you."

"Absurd." She bit her tongue rather than point out that she was skinny and old. "I don't mean to concur with Naruto's assessment, but your castle is full of women who are ten times more beautiful than I. I'm sure your bride will rival them. Why aren't you thinking about Princess Tenari?"

"Because there's something wickedly seductive about you, Sakura. I'll bet you're more beautiful than the plump and powdery Hinata. And she was the most beautiful girl on the market this spring; everyone has told me so."

"In the midst of lamenting over how poor Hinata has lost her looks," she pointed out.

"They're fools. You're ten times lovelier than that angel over there. It's not just because I snatched off your wig either. Do you know that your lips are the precise color of a raspberry?"

"Very nice," she said, pretty sure that she ought to stop his compliments, but unable to do so. They felt like manna after the humiliations and fears of the last years.

"I love raspberries," Sasuke said dreamily. "I like to nibble them, and suck them into my mouth until they explode in a burst of flavor. I like them every way, fresh, baked, in a pie."

"Are you suggesting that I would taste good in a pie?" She asked, laughing a bit. She sat down on the very edge of the picnic cloth and picked up her wineglass.

"You would taste good in any fashion at all," Sasuke said. "I am particularly fond of raspberry syrup." There was sinful laughter in his voice.

Pictures from Aretino's book poured into Sakura's mind, but—what could he mean?

Cold wine slid down her throat. She couldn't let herself be overthrown by desire. For that's what it was, this sharp heat between her legs, the wish to throw herself on top of him, the easy way in which the morality of a lifetime was being replaced by an ache instructing her to—

"No," she stated.

He opened his eyes. "Had I asked you something?"

"_Why_ have you lost your mind?" she asked. "Is it because I've allowed you such liberties?"

"Perhaps."

She scowled at him. "Offer me a post as your mistress and I'll stab you with a fork, just as Ino stabbed Kabuto. Except the fork won't go in your hand. I am not to be trifled with."

"I like my mistresses' fat and juicy," he said, slanting her another of his wicked looks.

"If I ever became a man's mistress, not that I would ever do so, he would have hair the color of a sunset, and eyes as green as—as green as emerald."

"A Jack-a-dandy of that sort will care more for his own beauty than yours." He reached out and picked up an apple.

"Absolutely not," Sakura said, warming to her imaginary gentleman friend. "He wouldn't be vain about his looks. He would be a perfect gentleman: humble, thoughtful, and utterly honorable. He would be so in love with me that if I threatened to leave him, he would—"

"Build a funeral pyre and hop onto it," Sasuke interrupted.

"Never. He would throw himself at my feet and beg for my forgiveness."

"There's the problem, Sakura. He should have been there in the beginning, rather than paying for the pleasure of your company."

"You're right; I won't be his mistress. I'll marry him instead." She picked up a lemon tart and contemplated eating it. She was not in the least bit hungry, but it looked delicious. And it would keep her from looking at Sasuke, who looked even more delicious.

"So you're planning to marry a man with red hair, green eyes, and the personality of a pudding? Sounds like Gaara to me."

"I'm considering him," Sakura said. "May I have some more of that wine please?"

Sasuke reached behind him and picked up the bottle, then propped himself on one elbow so he could pour wine first into her glass and then into his. "He's not bad."

"I know," Sakura said, feeling a bit hollow. "The only problem is that Ino would quite like to marry him as well."

"Ino is that girl who was in the boat with you last night."

"Yes."

"And she's the one you're offering to imitate, who nailed someone with a fork when he asked her to be his light-o-love?"

"It was worse than that. Kabuto kissed her in an improperly intimate fashion."

"Do tell," Sasuke said. "Were they kissing the way we do?"

He had pulled off his coat, and his shirt revealed a triangle of chest. It was vastly improper. Sakura pulled her gaze away. "_We_ don't kiss in any particular way," she corrected him. "We may have exchanged a few kisses in the past, but—"

"We kiss as if the bloody room had burst on fire," he interrupted. "We kiss as if making love didn't exist and kissing was all there was."

"Stop that!" She swallowed. "Kabuto rubbed himself against her."

"I do that," Sasuke said, satisfaction ripe in his voice. "I'd like to do it again too. Have you lifted the ban on kissing? I can't remember."

"No, I haven't," Sakura said, a fugitive shred of self-control emerging. "So Ino told Kabuto he was a snake, or something along those lines."

"_Not_ part of our kissing," Sasuke said. "You succumb. All I've heard are little murmurs, the encouraging kind."

She decided to ignore him. "That made Kabuto angry, so he reached out and simply grabbed her."

"Grabbed her? Hadn't he already done that?"

"With his hand," Sakura said, scowling. "Between her legs. Poor Ino was so overset by it that she could barely explain it to me now, a whole year later."

"I want to do that too," Sasuke said, sighing.

Sakura picked up a fork.

"But I haven't," he said hastily. "So that's when she forked him?"

"Yes, except he told everyone that she had groped him under the table and that's how the forking happened."

Sasuke looked up at her from under thick eyelashes. "Will you please grope me under the table, Sakura mine?"

"I'm not your Sakura," she said, feeling her lips curve. Her treacherous heart was no match for a flirtatious prince on a summer's day.

"That's the odd thing," he said, lying on his back again and shading his eyes with an arm. "You are, you, you are."

Sakura put her glass to her mouth because if she didn't, she would reach over and put her lips in his.

"So she forked him," Sasuke said, after a second.

"And he deliberately destroyed her reputation in retaliation. Gaara is a decent man. He has obviously seen through the rumors and realized that Ino would never grope anyone."

"It wouldn't be kind of you to take Gaara from poor Ino under the circumstances," Sasuke said. "Unless you are fond of the man, in which case you might keep in mind that matrimonial life with Gaara promise to be boring. Those overly decent men don't approve of groping."

"Wives do not grope their husbands under the table," Sakura said giggling.

"I shall make it part of the marriage settlement," Sasuke said. "I need a grope once a week or I'll wilt like a lily."

"You wouldn't wilt, you'd—" She broke off.

"What would I do?" Sasuke asked.

Her eyes fell, but after all, she had nothing to lose. "You'll be off to another woman."

Something flashed across his face so quickly that she couldn't read it. "Ah, my title rears its ugly head again," he said, a bit of chill in his voice.

"It's nothing to do with your title. Husbands stray. They have mistresses, and they take _friends_."

"Not everyone is as friendly as your godmother." His voice was still cool.

She fiddled with her fork. "My father was—friendly."

Sasuke nodded. "So was mine, as evidenced by Naruto." He got to his feet in one easy movement. "Shall we see if there are other statues hidden in the garden?"

She took his hand as he helped her up, feeling a pulse of relief. This conversation was uncomfortably intimate. More intimate even than kissing, which is odd.

"I see a couple of mounds of ivy that might hide statues," Sasuke said, hands on his hips. "There, and over against the back wall."

One of the mounds of ivy turned out to cover a pile of fallen bricks. "I wonder what it was originally," Sakura said.

"There's no way to tell since it's all to pieces. I think I'll get some men to build a very small folly here. It would be a great place for a dinner."

"Do princes ever get to have intimate dinners of that fashion?"

"Of course!"

"But the castle is full of people demanding your attention," Sakura said. "Are you ever alone?"

"Of course," he said again. But there was an odd expression on his face.

"When you go on your ancient digs, does everyone know you're a prince?"

Sasuke pulled down a bit more ivy and inspected the fallen bricks. "They don't care. I'm the foreign devil who's odd enough to want them to excavate carefully, rather than simply tunneling toward the gold."

That explained a great deal about Sasuke's hankering for the Land of Water, to Sakura's mind.

"You'd better find another green-eyed prig to marry," he said, moving over to the vines clinging to the back garden wall. "It sounds as if Ino need Gaara or she'll end up sowing baby clothes for other people's children."

"Gaara is not a prig!" Sakura said, coming over to help. "He's honorable, and decent."

"So you said." Sasuke sounded bored. "Perhaps what Ino needs is someone to take a skewer, rather than a fork, to Kabuto."

"It wouldn't help Ino if you skewered him, unless Kabuto confessed what happened so that everyone knew it was all a lie. I'm going to ask Tsunade to take care of it."

"Lady Tsunade is undoubtedly a formidable knight, but what do you intend her to do?"

"I don't know," Sakura said, "You know, this might be a portico. I think you're wrong and there is a door into the castle courtyard. It only makes sense."

"We looked from the other side," Sasuke said, wrenching at a mass of ivy. It came down on top of him, trails and strands of ivy all around his shoulders. "There are no gates in the outer walls."

"You look like a satyr," Sakura said, laughing.

"Give me my wine and my dancing girls," Sasuke said, leering at her.

"Beware!" she said, dancing back. "I'll stamp on your tail."

"How do you know what satyrs look like? I thought you were so ill-educated."

"I can read," Sakura said. "My father had a whole section all about such creatures." She glanced over mischievously and couldn't resist. "His library was quite thorough. He had Aretino as well."

Sasuke was bending over, shaking his head to get the last leaves out of his hair. He straightened, and the look in his eyes sent a bolt of heat straight to Sakura's stomach.

"You're trying to drive me mad," he said conversationally, moving toward her with the grace of a predator.

"Well," she squeaked, sounding like a bleating lamb, "I—I—"

Their kisses were everything he had described them to be: like a room on fire. Like a house with no air. She melted into his arms and the pressure of his lips stole every sensible thought in her head.

And replaced them with lewd images from Aretino's naughty book, picture of male bodies that were all muscle and smooth skin, men with wild expressions on their faces—only they weren't merely men; the face she saw in her mind's eye was Sasuke's.

His hands were sliding down her back down, moving slowly in a direction that they shouldn't move, down…

But he shouldn't be kissing her either, faithless man that he was.

"You promised," she said, breaking away from him.

His eyes were black. "Don't," he said, and the word was like a groan. It weakened her knees.

"We agreed not to kiss."

"That was before you admitted to ogling Aretino's art, if one can give it a name."

"I fail to see what that has to do with anything."

He leaned back against the wall and laughed. "It means, Sakuracha, that you are that rare thing amongst young ladies: a woman with curiosity. And, to be blunt, lust."

Sakura's cheeks started to turn pink; she could feel it. "I didn't study the book," she said haughtily, though she had. "I merely leafed through it and ascertained that it was inappropriate before putting it back on the shelf."

"Liar." He moved one lazy step, so he was just next to her again, though not touching. "What were your favorites, Sakura o' my Life? Did you like those naughty ones with more than two people in a bed?"

"No," she said, refusing to give in to the molten invitation in his eyes. "I think I should return to my chamber now."

"Good; I don't like those either," he said conversationally.

Despite herself, she smiled at that. But the sun was slanting lower over the old brick walls. "I really should return to the castle. Did we determine what this is?"

"It's a door," Sasuke said. He pulled the last swath of ivy to the ground.

It was a huge arched door, painted dark red, with elaborately wrought hinges in the shape of fleurs-de-lis. "This is not just any door," Sakura said, awed. "It's like the door to a cathedral."

Sasuke's brow cleared. "Of course! It must enter to the back of the chapel." He pulled in the huge knocker, but the door didn't budge. "Locked," he muttered. "And no key that I recall."

"It's probably in the chapel," Sakura said. "I want you to promise something."

"Anything for you," he said, and foolish woman that she was, her heart gave a silly thump.

"No more traveling through that corridor behind my bedchamber. I'll cover over the peephole, but I don't want to feel as if people are peering at me at night."

"If you have trouble sleeping, I'd be happy to rub your back," he said wolfishly.

She wrinkled her nose at him and set off toward the picnic things. "You have to make me a promise too," he called, staying where he was.

"What?"

"If I managed to skewer Kabuto in such a way that Ino's reputation is restored, then you…"

Sakura narrowed her eyes. "Just what would I have to do?"

"I am helping you," he pointed out. "Purely virtuous on my part. If Ino's reputation is restored, she'll have her choice of beaux, and you'll have a better shot at snagging hoity-toity Gaara."

"He's not—"Sakura began and gave up. "So what would I have to do if you achieve this miracle?"

He was next to her in one long stride. "You'd have to let me kiss you."

"Hmmm," she said. "Let's count the kiss you just stole, and then you're already in my debt."

"Not that kind of kiss." His voice was dark and thick.

Sakura stilled, uncertain what he meant.

His arms closed around her. "I'll keep you a virgin, Sakura. I promise on my word of honor. But let me discover you, give you pleasure, love you."

"L—"

He took the words from her lips. Their kiss was untamed as the yard they stood in. It was the kind of kiss that skirted the edge of propriety even though his hands stayed at her back, and hers around his neck.

It skirted propriety because they both knew the kiss was like making love, that there was an exchange, a possession and a submission, a giving and a taking, a forbidden intimacy.

Sakura staggered away, her knees weak. She turned rather than meet his eyes, knelt at the corner of the picnic cloth, and began to put silver back in the basket.

"I'll send a footman out to clean up, you foolish creature," Sasuke said.

"I'm not a creature, and there's no need to create work for someone that _we_ could do ourselves."

"I'm not creating work." Sasuke reached down and pulled her to her feet. "It _is_ their work. And if you don't think that a footman will leap at the chance to escape Naruto's eagle eye, then you don't know my brother well enough."

"Still," Sakura said uncertainly. She glanced over to see him frowning at her. "Don't start thinking I've been toiling as a maid instead of a swineherd," she told him, turning and walking toward the gate. "I've never been a maid."

"Of course not," he said, taking her arm. "You're a lady."

She glanced suspiciously at him, but he was smiling down at her as innocently as if he'd commented on the weather.


	8. Chapter 8

Clearly, Kabuto was a scoundrel. And scoundrels, in Sasuke's experience, generally showed their true colors when drunk.

He consigned that part of his plan to Naruto, telling him to ply his guests with too much champagne. Naruto rolled his eyes at this dictum, but at dinner Sasuke noticed the footmen whizzing around the tables refilling glasses, as busy as ants at harvest time.

The plan certainly had a marked effect at his own table. Lady Dagimo's daughter Arabella stopped throwing him longing, if halfhearted, looks, and bent her attentions entirely on young Lord Paypa to her left. By the fourth course, she had turned a charming shade of pink and was sagging gently toward Paypa's shoulder.

Her mother, on the other hand, turned a less-than-charming shade of puce and remained strictly upright.

Still the courses, and the champagne, kept coming. The countess loosened her corset, metaphorically speaking, and told him a meandering tale about an ailing aunt who lived in Tune Wells. "Illness," pronounced the countess, "should not be encouraged. My aunt has made a lifetime habit of it, and I do not approve."

Gales of laughter from Sakura's direction seemed to suggest that the conversation at her table was rather lively than that at his own. The one time he looked over his shoulder, Gaara was leaning so close that the man could certainly see down Sakura's bosom, and having the opportunity, likely was doing so.

That thought apparently caused an expression of such savagery to appear on his face that Lady Dagimo inquired whether he was having a spasm. "My aunt," she confided, "claims to have spasms on the quarter hour precisely. I told her that if so she would surely die of apoplexy when the clock struck noon."

"One had to assume that she did not comply?" Sasuke inquired.

"I meant it in a helpful manner," the countess said. "if the spasms do not lead to apoplexy, then they are not worth regarding, and should be ignored."

"I am curious about a guest of mine," Sasuke said, recklessly abandoning the aunt in Tune Wells. "I know that you are abreast of everyone in Suna…what can you tell me of Lord Kabuto?"

She responded to his lowered voice and request for gossip like one of Sakura's dogs faced with a lump of cheese. "_Well_," she said, "he's a nephew of Duke Orochimaru, as you probably know."

"Orochimaru?" Sasuke said, rolling the name over in his mind. "A suitable name."

"Suitable?" Lady Dagimo asked dubiously. "I don't know, Your Highness." Then she pronounced: "He's not good with Society. I don't hold with that young man."

Now they were at the heart of it. "My judgment is precisely the same," he told her, ignoring the fact that he hadn't actually met Kabuto yet. "There is something of the voluptuary about him."

"He's a shabster," the countess said, twitching her turban, which was in danger of plopping into her salmon. It was white satin with a diamond crescent that threatened to scratch Sasuke's on the cheek every time she leaned close.

"Do tell me an instance or two of his perfidy," Sasuke said, giving her the kind of smile that invited secrets.

"I wouldn't let him near my daughter," the countess said, poling her salmon knife. "He's ruined more than one reputation, you know. Young ladies aren't safe around the man."

"A bad hat," Sasuke suggested.

"Don't know about his hat," the countess said, pursing her own train of thought. "But all these ladies—the ones whose reputation he ruined—apparently acted the jade around him. Now I'm not saying that we don't have some young ladies who aren't better than they should be." She paused.

"It is so in all the world," Sasuke said encouragingly.

"But if I were young and foolish, and prone to act the mopsie, which I _never_ was," the countess said, "it wouldn't be with him, if you catch my meaning."

"Precisely," Sasuke said, nodding. "You are very perceptive, my lady."

The countess blinked at him. "Continental flummery," she pronounced. "I've had enough if this salmon." She summoned a footman.

"More champagne," Sasuke told the footman. He was curious to see whether Lady Arabella would actually collapse into the young lord's arms.

After most of his guests had toddled out of the dining room, he tracked down Kabuto in the billiards room.

The man was lounging at the side of the room, watching Neji defeat Kiba, or Kibi, as Sakura called him, with mathematical precision. It seemed that Neji, if no one else, was untouched by the sea of champagne that had sloshed through the dining room.

There was a general stir as Sasuke entered the room, of course. The group watching the game began a twitching appraisal of their breeches and coats. As if a prince—or anyone else with a title, for that matter—cared if their breeches bunched around their rods.

Neji looked up from the table and snapped him a bow; Kiba's was deeper, and definitely unsteady. One had to hope that they weren't playing for money.

Sasuke greeted all the gentlemen in turn. Lord Shino, bluff and hearty, chomping on his cigar; Jaraiya, holding a glass of champagne, naturally, but looking none the worse for it; finally, Kabuto.

His head rose in a smooth curve from a slim neck to a mustachioed mouth, and then up to a wide and rather graceful forehead. The unfortunate absence of a chin meant that his head resembled a squat bowling pin. He was around thirty; he smelled like a civet cat and had dyed his whiskers. One had to appreciate that the mustache was an attempt to widen the bottom half of his face, but the effect was unfortunate.

Really, Ino was generous when she called him a snake, Sasuke thought, lavishing a smile on him, the kind a mongoose gives a cobra.

"When will your betrothed arrive?" Kabuto was asking.

"One hopes before the ball," Neji said, carefully wiping down his billiard cue. "Every flower in Konoha is here, hoping to be plucked by His Highness, and they won't give up until the bride actually arrives. No one even deigns to flirt with the rest of us."

Kabuto laughed. "You insulted our host, Neji. The land is more formal than we are amongst ourselves. You must forgive the man," he said, turning to Sasuke and lowering his voice. "Rude but well-meaning."

Sasuke met Neji's eyes over Kabuto's shoulder. "In this case, Neji is correct," he said. "I do not know the bride whom my brother has chosen for me. Yet we have—how do I say?—a few weeks, a period of time in which to reflect on each other." He deliberately added a certain awkwardness to his speech. Konohamen invariably underestimated those who did not speak their language with fluency, a foolish habit that would get them in huge trouble someday.

"And in the meantime, you can survey our Konoha beauties," Kabuto said, giving him a jolly tap on the shoulder.

Sasuke stopped himself from swatting the man like a gnat. "The young Konoha ladies are so exquisite in their…exquisiteness. A garden of delightful flowers, as Neji as called them."

Neji snorted, over where he was chalking his stick, so Sasuke threw him a warning glance. "Neji introduced me to a charming girl this very morning," he said. "Miss—what was her name?—Ino something. With lovely blue eyes. I am quite taken with her."

Neji's eyebrow jerked up; of all the men in the room, he knew for certain that he had not taken Miss Ino Yamanaka anywhere near Sasuke.

There was a little silence in the room, as the cluster of men presumably tried to figure out how to deliver the nasty bit of gossip Kabuto had put about.

"Yamanaka is a bit old," Kabuto himself said, with a tittering laugh. "Must be well into her twenties."

"She hasn't the best reputation," Lord Shino said, "but I've never cottoned to it myself. Think there was a misunderstanding." He chomped on his cigar and looked straight at Kabuto.

"Yes, because who could believe that little Ino would choose Kabuto?" Jaraiya said softly, coming closer. By that point in the evening, he had to have drunk a few bottle of champagne, but miraculously he was steady on his feet. "_We_ love you, of course Kabuto, but…"

Kabuto's color rose above his high collar and he tittered again. "I've had my admirers," he said.

"What was the story?" Kiba asked, in his usual bumbling fashion. "Did she kiss you or something, Kabuto?"

"Oh," Sasuke said. "I trust she didn't give you an unwanted kiss, Kabuto? Though one must ask whether there _is_ such a thing as an unwanted kiss from such a delightful young lady."

"More than a kiss," Kabuto said, a trifle sullenly. He seemed to have grasped that the atmosphere was not entirely charitable.

Sasuke turned around gestured to the footman stationed at the door. "Champagne for everyone."

Shino was the sort of man who wouldn't tolerate unfairness; Sasuke could see that at a glance. Jaraiya looked like the sort who might drink himself into a stupor, but even inebriated wouldn't lose his sense of himself as a gentleman.

"From what I heard," Neji called from the billiard table, where he was setting up the balls again, "she was so overset by your indescribable charms, Kabuto, that she attempted an intimate caress."

Sasuke let his eyes drift from the top of Kabuto's head, pause in the area where his chin should have been, down to the padded shoulders, pinched-in-waist, and buckled slipper. "Odd…Not that I mean it as an insult, Lord Kabuto. But young ladies are generally frivolous, are they not? So prone to look to the outside, rather than ascertain the inner worth of a man."

"The odd thing, to my mind is," said Shino, "is that Miss Ino ain't alone. One of my cousin's gals, visiting from the Land of Wave, had a similar type of story bruited about. Except that the little gal, Delia, supposedly dragged Lord Kabuto into a closet."

Kabuto glanced toward the door, but Sasuke was standing squarely between him and escape.

"So adventuresome, these Konoha ladies," Sasuke commented. "Yet they look as if—how do you say?—butter wouldn't melt in their mouths."

"That's just it," Shino said, coming to stand at Sasuke's shoulder. "Delia weren't an adventuresome sort of girl, and she had a different tale about what happened."

"Really?" Sasuke said. "You were lucky that her father didn't take up a disagreement with you, Lord Kabuto. But of course on the Continent we are so much more prone to turn to a rapier to resolve our differences." He rested his forefinger on the handle of his rapier, and Kabuto's eyes followed the movement.

"Delia was betrothed already and now she's got two little ones of her own," Shino said. "But she had no father to take after His Lordship. The same as Miss Yamanaka, though I didn't think of it until now."

"I fail to see what any of this has to do with the prince's original question," Kabuto said in his light, high voice. "Elegance will always awaken a woman's ambitions, you know. If you gentlemen would like a few tips on how to heat up a woman's appreciation, I'd be happy to pass some on."

It was a masterly attempt. "You think that Ino Yamanaka was overcome by lust for your costume?" Neji said, drifting over to stand at Sasuke's other shoulder. "Odd, because, if you'll forgive me, Kabuto, she's never made the slightest approach to _me_." Neji was without doubt the most elegant man in the room.

"Well," Kabuto said, "ladies generally prefer an air of refinement, Neji. If you'll forgive me," he added.

There _was_ something aggressively masculine about Neji…perhaps it was the look in his eyes. Or the way he was holding his billiard cue. It was amazing the way a man in an embroidered coat could take on the air of a dockworker.

"I'm not following," Kiba complained. "Either Ino grabbed Kabuto into a closet or she didn't."

"She didn't," Kabuto stated.

"No, Delia did that," Sasuke put in.

"Oh, so there were two of them," Kiba said. "I thought the one girl had done it all. Ino Yamanaka is a bit small for dragging men about, don't you know? Not up to the task, I would say."

"Seems to me there was yet a third," Jaraiya put in. He was lounging to the side, looking highly entertained. "Wasn't there a story about, years ago, Kabuto? Some lusty wench took you in Almack's."

"No!" Sasuke exclaimed. "But this is remarkable. A man so fortunate as to have driven three ladies to the point of an indiscretion."

"But here's the question," Kiba said, slurring his words a bit. "Did the third girl have a pa, then? Well, I suppose we know she had a pa, but was he living?"

"Good point, nephew," Sasuke said. "A very good point. Jaraiya, do you remember the young lady's name? Or"—he turned back to Kabuto—"surely you must, my lord. Even though these events seem to happen to you with distressing regularity…still you must remember the ladies in question."

Kabuto shrugged. "All these questioning…so unpleasant, gentlemen. Am I expected to remember every coquette whom I've met in my years? Almack's is full of dissipated fair ones." He drained his champagne. "I must really retire to bed."

"No, no," Sasuke said gently. "There's no reason for flummery amongst ourselves, Lord Kabuto. Do you or do you not remember the name of the third young lady whom you accused of making an unwanted advanced?"

Kabuto set his teeth.

"I've got it," Jaraiya said. "Her last name was Yamiko, though I'll be damned if I can remember the rest of it."

"Sir Nao Yamiko," Shino said, drawing his brows together. "Died years ago."

"No pa," Kiba said mournfully. "She had no pa either."

"I see," Sasuke commented. "Konoha seems to have suffered a rash of trollopy young ladies without fathers."

"All _right_," Kabuto snapped. He jerked his chin at the footman. "You. More champagne."

There was silence as the wine gurgled into his cup. He drank, and looked up, fugitive sort of courage burning in his eyes. "They wanted it anyhow," he said. "They're all nothing but cattle in fine clothing. Scratch the surface of a supposed lady and you find nothing more than a slattern, opening her legs to any sparks of the first stare who happens by."

"But you are no spark of the first stare. An obscure phrase, but clear enough," Sasuke said. He turned and nodded to the footman. "Please fetch Naruto. Lord Kabuto will be leaving shortly."

"He would have done that to my Hinata," Kiba said, staring at Kabuto with a kind of blurry horror. "She ain't got no pa either. And then she'd have been ruined."

"At this point it's too late to help Miss Yamiko," Shino said, folding his arms over his chest. "And Delia is married, snug and tight. But Miss Ino Yamanaka—now that's a problem. Because I would guess that the young men aren't taking to her, not after your story."

"He should marry her," Kiba said, "And he should promise on his word of honor that he'll never do anything like this again."

"He hasn't got a word of honor," Shino said, at the same moment that Jaraiya said, "I doubt Miss Ino would take him. He's too ugly, among other thing." He said it coolly, over the rim of his glass.

Another blotchy flush was rising up Kabuto's neck. He turned his back on Jaraiya and snapped a bow to Sasuke. "I ascertain that you'd like me to leave this moldering pile of bricks, Your Highness, and I will. Gladly."

"Not just yet," Sasuke said. "You will be leaving; my inestimable Naruto will help you along your journey. But first…we really do have to discuss the question of making amends to Miss Ino Yamanaka."

Kabuto's titter had a virulent undertone to it now. "I'll go out there and tell the pack of them, shall I? I'll tell them that I had a kiss off the wench and she kissed like a dead fish, so I saved other men the trouble."

Sasuke's fist slammed into Kabuto's jaw. He flew backward, smashed into the edge of the billiard table, and caromed to the floor.

"Is he out?" Neji asked, after Kabuto didn't stir.

"No," Kiba said, carefully pouring his champagne over the man's face. "I think his eyelids are twitching."

"Waste of good champagne," Jaraiya observed. "Though I want to congratulate you on your forbearance, Prince. I thought you were going to have at him when he ventured into barnyard talk."

Sasuke walked over and hauled Kabuto to his feet. The man blinked and swayed, but kept upright. "Do we need to have further conversation, Lord Kabuto?"

"I'll be glad if you didn't break my jaw," Kabuto said, putting a finger in his mouth to feel his teeth.

"Shall we practice what you are going to say about Miss Ino Yamanaka?"

"I'll tell them that the prince wanted me to clear the name of his little canary bird, shall I?"

Over he went again, this time sprawling on the billiard table itself.

"Don't throw any champagne on him," Neji cried, alarmed. "You'll ruin the felt!"

Kiba pulled Kabuto to a sitting position on the edge of the table. His eyelids fluttered, but then his head rolled over and he slumped back down on the table.

"Tiresome," Sasuke observed, "but I believe that he is likely ready to tell the truth." He turned to another footman. "Go to Lady Dagimo's chambers. Give her my compliments and request that she attend me here, in the billiards room, on a matter of utmost urgency."

Shino's mouth fell open and Neji laughed aloud.

A few minutes later Kabuto blinked, and gave a yelp, and sat up. "My tooth!" He spat a little blood and said, with something of a lisp, "You've taken out my tooth, you bloody foreign—" He stopped short, catching Sasuke's eyes.

"Lady Dagimo will arrive in a moment to hear your confession," Sasuke told him. "Confession, so they say, is good for the soul. In your case, it is your only chance of keeping the rest of your teeth. Do you understand?"

"I can't. You're going to make me an outsider," Kabuto panted. "You don't understand the Kono—"

Kiba reached over, and picked up a yellow tooth on the billiard table, and dropped it in Kabuto's hand. "Wouldn't want you to leave this behind. Bit of a souvenir of your visit to the castle, one might say."

"No one will invite me anywhere," Kabuto bleated. "You have no idea what you're doing to me. I'll have to rusticate."

"For life," Shino put in grimly.

"I'll—I'll marry the girl!" Kabuto said, looking wildly from face to face. "That's the best I can offer, and she'll leap at the chance, you know she will. I'll do it just to show what a gentleman I am because she—"

"Ino won't want to marry you," Sasuke stated. "Especially not with that big gaping hole where your tooth used to be. It makes you look degenerate, which is appropriate."

"I've got a nice estate," Kabuto said, starting a blather. "She'd be lucky to have me. It's unentitled and—"

The door opened behind them. "Pardon me," came an imperious voice. "I expected to find a fire at the very least, but I see merely a gaggle of tipsy gentlemen, and I fail to see how _that_ can be termed an emergency."

Sasuke turned about and bowed. The countess had apparently been caught on her way to bed. She was dressed in a voluminous cap and swathed in enough ruffled white cotton to outfit an entire village.

"You do me too much honor," he said, kissing her hand.

"I feel bound to tell you, Your Highness," said Lady Dagimo, "that I do not consider the time of night salubrious for encounters with the opposite sex, nor do I appreciate requests of this nature."

"I entirely understand, and yet you are the only person in the castle to whom I could make this appeal," Sasuke said, drawing to the side so that the countess could see Kabuto for the first time.

She sniffed in disgust. "I see."

"Lord Kabuto has a confession to make," Sasuke explained, "and as an arbiter of the Society, I felt that you were the best person to hear it."

"I trust you're not implying I'm of a disposition," the countess said. "Lord Kabuto, say what you wish. But only, if you please, after you wipe the blood from your chin. I am quite squeamish."

Kabuto did as commanded, gave a kind of shudder, and blinked several times.

"Ino Yamanaka—"

"That's Miss Yamanaka to you," she interrupted. "I don't hold with these relaxed manners among the younger set."

"Miss Yamanaka did not, ah, welcome my advances," Kabuto said. "In fact, she stabbed me with a fork after repulsing an unwanted intimacy on my part."

The countess nodded. "You're a blackguard," she said. "Knew it the moment I saw you, and I'm never wrong about a character. I hope never to see you again my natural lifetime."

Kabuto swallowed and looked as if he very much hoped her wish would come true.

"I'll take care of Miss Yamanaka's reputation tomorrow," she continued, and no one in the room doubted but that Ino's name would be as unblemished as that of a newborn babe by noon. "I shall ensure that she has her pick of the Society. I fancy that people give my opinion some weight."

"Where you go, others will always follow," Sasuke said.

"We'll follow," Kiba piped up.

"Surely you said that Lord Kabuto will be traveling for his health."

"Yes," Sasuke said, smiling at her. "He will."

"I believe that the Land of Sound is a nice place," she said. "I heard tell that one in two people there are eaten by sharks. That leaves fighting odds, as I see it."

Sasuke bowed. "Your wish is my command, my lady."

She snorted. "Continental flummery." And with that, she exited the room.

"What did she say? I'm not going to the Land of Wave," Kabuto said, her words filtering through his mind. "I might rusticate for the fall. Or perhaps even for the next season. Though that would be a sacrifice, I tell you. I would be missed."

Sasuke glanced over his shoulder. Naruto was lounging in the doorway, a phalanx of footmen at his back. A moment later Lord Kabuto was escorted from the room, and all that was left of him was a wail dying away down the corridor.

"Miss Ino Yamanaka is lucky to have met you, Prince," said Jaraiya.

"Oh, I haven't met her," Sasuke said. "I'm afraid that I merely pretend an interest, the better to smoke him out. Would you give me a game, Neji?"

"You took out Kabuto from the goodness of your heart?" Neji said, raising an eyebrow. "Such virtue…" He handed over a billiard cue. "I feel near to melancholy at the fact that I'm honored-bound to slay you at billiards."

"Oh you are, are you?" Sasuke asked, chalking his cue. "We'll see about that."

His opponent broke into a bellow of laughter.

* * *

As it turned out, Lady Dagimo's information offensive was considerably more efficient than predictions of the noon hour. Sakura learned of Kabuto's disgrace when Riku brought hot cocoa in the morning, and it was confirmed when, on Lady Arabella's invitation, she met a small group of ladies in the rose drawing room for a demonstration of how to shape a reticule from a swansdown muff, to be given to Ino's maid.

No one bothers to tinker with a muff, let alone shape it into a reticule. They were too busy agreeing that they had never trusted Kabuto, and assuring that she was a dove and a saint.

"Show us how you held the fork," Tsunade said, snatching one from the tea tray. "I'd rather learn how to poke holes in a loose fish like Kabuto than turn my favorite muff into a reticule. Like this? Or like this?"

Sakura burst out laughing, watching Tsunade thrust her fork in the air like a man learning to fence.

"I really couldn't say," Ino said, her cheeks pink with excitement. "It all happened so fast. I just knew that I had to save myself and so I did."

"I only hope that I'm not of an age where gentlemen might hesitate to offer me an impropriety," Tsunade said. "I think I have the grip perfectly. I'm sure I could do considerable damage, if only someone would give me the opportunity. Perhaps I could convince my husband that I need to practice."

Lady Dagimo looked up from a small escritoire, where she was penning missives to, as she put it, everyone who mattered. "I consider forking husbands to show a lack of moral fiber," she pronounced.

"That's because she'd out-and-out bludgeon Dagimo if she wanted to," Tsuande muttered to Sakura.

"Let's talk about the ball tomorrow," Arabella cried after a hasty glance at her mother. "Miss Haruno, what will you wear? You have such exquisite taste…will you wear a pair of glass slippers?"

Sakura opened her mouth, but Tsunade jumped in. "Glass slipper? What are they? Something I missed because of that dratted trip abroad last spring, I warrant."

"They're the most delicious slippers in the world," Arabella gushed. "And Miss Haruno brought them into fashion. I only wish I could have a pair, but Mama is quite heartless on the subject."

"Might as well be made of diamonds, for the cost of them," Lady Dagimo said, raising her head again. "A waste of money."

"Likely to splinter and cut your toes off, are they?" Tsunade asked with interest. "I think I'm probably too curvy to trust myself to glass."

"They're not really made of glass," Sakura said, wracking her brains to try to remember what Riku said about them. "And yes, I will be wearing a pair."

"All the best fashion of frightfully expensive," Tsunade said. "My dressing chamber was positively littered with ostrich feathers after the craze last year at court. They cost a pretty penny, and the weight of seven of them gave me a terrible headache."

"I shall wear a white satin petticoat with gold Brussels drapery to the ball," the countess announced. "With eight white ostrich feathers. I seem to suffer no ill effects at all from such plumage."

"White, white, white," Tsunade muttered. "You'd think she was a bride. Someone should tell her that an expanse of snow always looks ten times wider than a plowed field."

"Tsunade!" Sakura said, giggling madly.

"You are right to correct me," Tsunade said. "That field hasn't been plowed in years."

"I am wearing a draped tunic to the ball," Ino said. "Do tell me what you're wearing, Hinata? I find you such an inspiration."

Sakura hadn't the faintest idea. "I brought three of four costumes with me," she said airily. "I never make up my mind until the very last minute."

"Will you wear your hair in the Grecian or the Konohan style?" Lady Arabella asked.

"I really couldn't say," Sakura said, elbowing Tsunade in a silent entreaty that she change the subject of conversation. "At the moment I am enamored of my wigs."

"I brought a gorgeous with me," Arabella said.

"Gentlemen don't care for wigs on a gal," the countess said, looking up again. "I've told you time and again, Arabella, that a gentleman looks to a woman's hair to see what sort of breeder she'll be."

There was a moment of silence. "It's a good thing that I like wigs," Tsunade said. "Otherwise my three husbands might have looked elsewhere."

"I apologize for my mother," Arabella said quietly.

"I hear you, daughter," the countess said. "If there's any apologizing to do, I'll do it myself." She looked over at the settee. "I'm sorry, Tsunade. I had no call to be talking about breeding in front of you."

"It's years in the past," Tsunade said with a little shrug. "But do you know, Miyaki, I believe that's the first name you've addressed me by that name?"

"I shall not do so again," the countess said, returning to her letter. "It's dreadfully vulgar to use first names in conversation, let alone a pet name of that variety."

"I knew I had some particular reason for liking the name," Tsunade said. "It's my incurable vulgarity."

"I'll tell you what is vulgar," the countess said. "Vulgarity is the way the Miss Emi Goong makes eyes at that prince. Admittedly, _is_ a prince."

"A particularly luscious one," Tsunade put in.

"He isn't the objectionable one," the countess said. "But he's a foreigner, and a prince, and our host. And there's a princess supposedly arriving this very day to marry the man. Emi Goong has been staring at him as if he were a god or something of that nature."

"Surely not," Tsunade said, much shocked. "Those gods never wear stitch of clothing. I spent a great deal of time examining them, so I know."

"Take it as you will," the countess stated.

"She is enamored," Arabella said. "She told me that the prince smiled at her last night and her heart beat so that she almost swooned on the spot."

"Even if he didn't have a princess on the way, he'd never marry her. This castle must cost a fortune to run," the countess said, glancing about. "The cost of maintaining staff alone must be thousands of pounds a year."

"I wish I had a fortune," Arabella said, sighing. "He's so handsome."

"I'm not marrying you to a fortune hunter," her mother said, finishing her last letter with a flourish. "Here, you—" She beckoned to a footman. "Have them out in the evening meal, if you please."

"It's very kind of you," Ino said shyly. "I know my mother would say the same, but she was so overset by the news of Lord Kabuto's departure that she took to her bed."

"Your mama has the fortitude of a chicken in the rain," the countess said. "This should do it." There was a grim certitude about her tone. "Even if that ne'er-do-well escapes from whatever ship the prince bundled him onto, he won't dare show his face in polite society again. I've written to everyone I know and anyone I don't know ain't worth knowing."

"Truly most kind," Ino said.

"Including," the countess continued, "the former Miss Delia. She was one of the first ladies he accosted. Luckily her betrothal was arranged in the cradle…do you know who she is now?"

Tsunade frowned; Arabella, Ino, and Sakura shook their heads.

"The Duchess of Calvert," the countess said triumphantly. "I wrote her _and_ the duke as well. I knew him when he was a boy, of course. I thought he'd better know the truth about his wife."

"In my opinion," Tsunade said, "the truth about one's spouse becomes clear after a mere few weeks of marriage. If not a few hours."

"I agree," the countess said. "But it can't hurt. If Kabuto dares to show his nose in Konoha, the duke will cut it off. There's just one thing I'd like to know."

They all regarded her silence. The countess had a way of convincing a room she knew everything, so a disclosure of ignorance was fascinating.

"Why'd he do it?" she asked.

"Men of that kind can't stop themselves," Tsunade said with distaste. "I've run into them before. Kabuto had no luck on his own merits, so he destroyed those who had the character to reject his advances, such as our own Miss Ino."

"Not _him_," the countess said. "The prince. Why did the prince take after Kabuto like that?"

"His Highness is like a king," Arabella said worshipfully. "He saw an injustice and he addressed it."

"I think he has a moral nature and can't stand wrongdoer," Ino said, her voice taking on a dramatic tone. "Like an avenging angel, he came down with the sword of lighting and smote the evildoer. I can't wait to see the Russian princess he's betrothed to. Apparently she's due to arrive before supper; too bad mother already expressed concern that the dancing tonight will be too strenuous for me."

"Dancing tonight, is there?" the countess said. "And the ball tomorrow. We'd better retire for a good rest, Arabella. I'm quite worn out by scratching all that down on paper over and over. Ino, you come with me as well."

Ino and Arabella obediently rose to their feet, and they processed from the room like the queen's barge attended by two small tugboats.

Tsunade watched them leave, and then turned to Sakura. "I don't suppose _you_ know anything about the prince's unlikely digression into knight-errantry?"

"I may have mentioned Ino's plight," Sakura said cautiously.

"And he set off like a knight in shining armor to do your bidding. Curious, my dear. Very curious. If I were you, I'd be wary. When men start behaving like members of King Sarutobi's court, they're generally planning to shake the sheets, if you'll excuse the phrase. _Your_ sheets, in this case."

"Oh no," Sakura said weakly. Her blood heated at the picture that presented, of Sasuke, tangled in her sheets, his hand pulling her to him, his…

"Oh yes," Tsunade said. "Don't bet your fortune on a card game, m'dear, because your sins are written on your face."

"Sins? I haven't—"

"Sins to come," Tsunade said. But there was a smile in her eye. "Just don't make a fool of yourself. Do you know how to prevent a babe?"

"Yes," Sakura said, a blush hot in her cheeks. "But I don't need to know. I told him—" She shut her mouth.

"Fascinating," Tsunade said. "Unfortunately, his wife-to-be will apparently arrive on the premises at any moment. Would you take her place, if you could?"

Sakura shook her head, taking a dainty little teacup that Tsunade offered her. "No."

"Why not? He's personable, he's got a fine leg, and he doesn't smell. You could do much worse."

"He's my father all over again," Sakura said flatly, "down to the fact that he has to marry for money. It's not his fault, exactly, nor was it my father's. But I'm not going to lie in a darkened room while my husband is out wooing other women."

Tsunade bit her lip. "I feel an unwelcome pang of guilt. I have to tell you that generally I never entertain the emotion."

"I didn't mean you," Sakura said. "Frankly, I'd much rather that my father had cavorted with you than with Masako. My point is merely that he didn't love my mother. He didn't honor her, or even truly care for her. I want a _real _marriage, Tsunade."

"A real marriage…It's hard to know what you mean by that, love. Marriage is a complicated beast."

"Surely it's less complicated if one starts out with respect and affection," Sakura said.

"How do you know the prince doesn't feel that for you?"

"He feels lust," Sakura said bluntly. "Which doesn't mean much."

"There's nothing without lust," Tsunade said. "Between men and women, I mean. Just think about your purported fiancé, Lord Inuzuka. If a woman was lucky enough to feel lust for him, affection might follow. Otherwise…I'm not so sure."

"Sasuke doesn't like the idea that he is, perforce, marrying for money. It doesn't suit his character, and so he's wooing me in his spare time, as it were. Toying with the idea of making me his mistress. Playing the prince enamored of the swine girl."

There was a second of silence. "That's a cold assessment of the man," Tsunade said, finally. "I see him as a more passionate type, the kind who would throw his heart over a windmill if he met the woman for him."

"No prince can do that," Sakura said. "His marriage is a matter of royal protocol and treaties and that sort of thing. My father should have married you."

"Then you wouldn't be here," Tsunade said. "What's more, I loved my first husband. And I love Jaraiya, too. My second husband wasn't terrible, though I can't say I was quite as enthusiastic."

"I would simply like to marry without regard to money."

"The more important point is not to fall in love with someone who _is_ marrying with regard to money."

"I won't," Sakura promised.

"I wish I believed you," Tsunade said, rather gloomily. "I would have fallen in love with the prince myself if I were your age."

"I'll find a man who loves me for myself, and then I'll fall in love with _him_."

"I'm trying to remember if I was ever as young as you are, but if so, the memory is lost in the mists of time."

"I'm not young," Sakura said, grinning. "Practically an octogenarian, as you characterized Ino."

Tsunade sighed. "I suppose that poor Gaara is no longer in the running? I think he's taken a great liking to you."

"He's a wonderful man," Sakura said.

"Too boring, the poor sweetheart, with all his talk of blackbirds and vicars. He'll end up with Ino after all. Though I do like her considerably better than I did before."

"He'd be lucky to end up with Ino," Sakura said. "She would keep him on his toes. She has a madly dramatic streak, you know."

"Did you see the countess's face with Ino described the prince as wielding the sword of lightning? She definitely has a way with words." Tsunade rose. "This will be a very, very interesting evening. I hope that the Russian princess is beautiful indeed…for her own sake."

* * *

As she followed her godmother out the door, Sakura couldn't bring herself to agree with Tsunade about the _interesting_ evening.

Was it normal, could it be normal, to be absolutely in the grip of something as fierce as her anticipation of the evening seemed to be?

From the moment she'd awakened in the morning, she hadn't been able to focus on anything other than Sasuke's promise to kiss her, discover her, give her pleasure. And didn't he say—didn't he say _love her_? What did that mean?

Her obsession had only grown worse once it was clear that Sasuke had fulfilled his side of the bargain. Kabuto was dispatched to parts unknown; Ino's reputation was repaired and she would most likely be married off within a fortnight, if Lady Dagimo had her way.

Sakura had to fulfill her side of the promise, and let Sasuke do with her as he willed.

Tsunade went off to find her husband, and Sakura continued up the stairs, desperately trying to pull her thoughts in order.

_Give her pleasure_ sounded…it sounded wonderful. Every bit of her body tingled at the thought, turned warm and soft. It was like a fire in her blood, a kind of madness. She couldn't help looking everywhere for Sasuke, thinking he might come around the corner any moment.

It took all her self-control not to walk back down the stairs and loiter in the drawing room, waiting for him. Or worse, humiliate herself by asking Naruto where his brother might be found.

The very thought of it stiffened her backbone, and she started walking more quickly down the corridor that led to the west wing.

She had to allow his kiss, whatever that was. But she didn't have to humiliate herself by allowing him to know the feverish state she was in.

She would simply get through whatever it was he had planned…with her dignity intact. Her heart was pounding at the thought, and she began to walk faster and faster.

When would Sasuke claim his kiss? Presumably before his bride-to-be arrived. It was all too ridiculous; the very idea of kissing a betrothed man was scandalous. Somehow she didn't care.

Fire danced over her pulse again.

She would take a perfumed bath. After all those years of working for Masako, she still found luxury of a bath to be the greatest pleasure in being a lady.

Then she meant to have an argument with Riku. She didn't want to wear her bosom friends. She was sick of jutting out in front like the prow of a ship, and of the feeling that she had her breasts presented on a platter for men to ogle at.

Though of course it mattered most who was doing the ogling.

The very thought of Sasuke's eyes and the way he had looked at her wet bodice after saving her from the lake…

She wrenched the open door to her chamber, thinking of pulling the bell cord to summon her maid. She darted into the room, reached her hand out—froze.

She wasn't alone.

He was seated in a chair by the window, reading, and the sun was making a light streak in his hair. "I wouldn't pull that cord, if I were you," he said, turning the page, a wicked little smile hovering at the edge of his mouth. "Your maid might be shocked."

"Sasuke," she said, feeling blood pound through her body and a terrible, strange joy took hold of her. "What are you doing in my chamber?"

"Waiting for you," he said, finally raising his eyes. "You owe me. In case you had forgotten."

"I have heard something of the matter," she said, drifting away from him toward the other side of the room. It felt too small with him in it. "Where's Fusion? He usually sleeps on the bed while I'm gone."

"The one to ask about is Caesar," Sasuke said. "That dog is as short-tempered as my aunt Song, and that's saying quite a lot."

Sakura frowned and looked on the side of the bed. "What have you done with them?"

"Fusion is here," Sasuke said. "Lazy sod."

She looked over and saw Fusion lying between the arm of the chair and Sasuke's leg. His chin was resting on the prince's thigh and there was a look of utter bliss on his face. She laughed. "Well, what of Caesar, then?

"Locked in your dressing room," Sasuke said. "I believe that mongrel thought I was an intruder."

"You _are_ an intruder," Sakura said, plucking open the door to her little dressing room. "There you are, Caesar. Did you try to warn me that my room had been invaded?"

"I thought he'd have a furious fit," Sasuke said.

Caesar seemed chastened now. He growled at Sasuke's boots but otherwise kept his mouth shut.

Sakura got down on her knees and gathered him up. "You're a good dog," she told him. "You knew this rascally prince did not belong in my room because he might ruin my reputation, and you did your best to tell the world, didn't you?"

Caesar gave a little woof in the affirmative.

"One would think you're fond of that animal," Sasuke said, putting down his book.

She looked at him over Caesar's silky head. "You must leave my room, Sasuke. If anyone knew you were here—"

"I know," he said, pulling out a length of black lace. "I brought along the veil. No one will see us leaving together."

"I'm not going with you anywhere," she said instantly. "I want a bath, and then a rest before tonight. Has your princess arrived yet, by the way?"

"She's on her way," he said. "Should be here in a few hours. Naruto has all the servants in a bustle over it."

Sakura looked at him dubiously. "You must be…Are you excited to meet her?"

"Enthralled," he said flatly. "There's dancing tonight and you can't dance."

"I can try," she said with dignity.

"Not until you've had some lessons. Not unless you want everyone to know that you're not Hinata. The lucky thing is that given the arrival of Princess Tenari, no one will even notice if you don't make an appearance. They'll be too busy ogling her."

"They'll notice if _you_ don't," she pointed out.

"I'll have to come and go," Sasuke said.

"Come and go from where?" she asked suspiciously. "I only promised you a kiss, Sasuke. You're making this sound like an event."

"I took my life into my hands last night, fighting that blackguard," he said, his eyes innocent. "Of course I expect you to spend some time with me."

"Spend time where?" she said. "Were you really in danger?"

He held out his hand. Still kneeling, with Caesar on her lap, Sakura leaned over and saw a tiny cut on one knuckle. "Dear me. I'm about to faint just thinking of the peril you were in."

"Wrench," he said grinning. "I think we should leave Fusion here, don't you?" He ran a finger over the dog's sleek head. "We wouldn't want to embarrass him." Fusion gave a luxurious sigh. "Naruto will send up a footman to give the dogs an airing later."

"I'm not going anywhere," Sakura stated. "As I said, I am planning to take a bath and a nap."

"I approve," he said. "It'll be a sacrifice, but I'll leave you to take a bath alone, I promise."

"I like it here," she said, stubbornly.

"My chambers are in the tower," he said. "Please, Sakura. I'll show you that pot, the one that held the knucklebones."

She opened her mouth to say no, but there was just a shadow of uncertainty in his eyes. Something else too, something that she'd never seen in a man's eyes before.

"Tenari isn't here yet," he said. "Not in my castle. Please."

Her eyes dropped to his mouth, and she was lost. "What about my maid?" she asked helplessly. "She'll come to dress me soon."

"I told Naruto to keep her occupied."

"You told _Naruto_?" She got off her knees, Caesar scrambling to the floor. "Just what did you tell Naruto?"

Sasuke rose to his feet. "Believe me, I was in more danger from Naruto than from Kabuto. He was outraged when I told him you would—"

"I can't believe you told him that!" Sakura cried. "Don't you know what you've done? Everyone in this castle will think I'm a doxy before the evening is out!"

Sasuke's jaw set. "Naruto is my brother. He's my right hand and my closest friend. He would _never_ tell a soul, if only because he deeply disapproves."

"And well he should," she flashed. "I can't go to your room! Even to be seen on the way there is tantamount to ruin."

"You won't be seen," Sasuke said. "My aunt is housed in the same tower as I am, and you will be wearing her veil."

"This is too dangerous," she said. "We might well run into an acquaintance of the princess's. What if we meet Lady Dagimo? She told me a short time ago that she knows everyone. Kiba will wonder where I am."

"Naruto has already informed them both that you are suffering from a stomach upset," he said promptly.

"You take a great deal upon yourself," she said, glowering at him.

"Please, Sakura."

The sad truth was that his _please_ was irresistible. "I suppose I would like to see the little pot. I could visit you for an hour. At the most," she added.

He held out the veil. "If you please, love."

"Don't call me that," she said, shaking down the veil so that a muffling layer of black lace stood between her and the world. "I'm not your love. I'm merely—I'm merely—"

"Do tell," he said, taking her arm. "To ask my earlier question a different way, what _are_ you? Naruto wanted to know the same thing and threatened to lay me out cold when I said that to my mind you were the most beautiful woman I'd ever dream of seducing, not that I plan to."

"I almost wish he had laid you out," Sakura said. "I'm sure this will all end badly."

"Well, just think of this: Everyone would think I was trifling with Miss Hinata Haruno, not with you," Sasuke said.

"They already think that," Sakura said gloomily. "Hinata will be furious with me."

"Because you've marred her reputation?"

"She didn't even have the fun of the flirtation," she pointed out. "Not to mention the fact that Hinata is truly in love with Kiba."

"I find that hard to imagine," Sasuke said. "He was with us last night, you know. He told me that he would have gone to Konoford, but he judged it a waste of time."

"Yes, that's Kiba," she said, resigned. "I'm sorry."

"A sharp right turn ahead, and we haven't seen a soul yet. Why are you sorry? He's apparently from _my_ family tree."

To her horror, at that very moment she heard a cheerful, familiar voice somewhere in the vicinity.

And that voice was singing. "_That very morning to the spring I came_," Kiba sand, rather tunefully. To her horror, he sounded a bit tipsy. "_Where finding beauty culling nakedness_—" He broke off, obviously seeing them.

Sakura tried to peer through the veil but all she could see were people-shaped mounds that looked like moving piles of coal.

"Princess, may I present Lord Shino and Lord Kiba," Sasuke said. She sank in a tottering curtsy, mumbling something.

"It's a great pleasure to meet you," Shino said.

Kiba was undoubtedly engaged in one of his floor-scraping bows.

"Step back, for Merlins' sake, man," Shino said, "You're going to topple over if you bow forward like that."

Sakura's heart was pounding so hard that she felt as if they must hear it. If Kiba discovered her, it would be one thing, but Shino…

"I hope you are in good health, Your Highness?" Kiba said cheerfully.

"My aunt is undoubtedly shocked by your song," Sasuke said before she could say anything. "Have you imbibed of the grape, Viscount?" He sounded more pompous than she could have imagined.

"We've been on tour of the wine cellars with Naruto," Kiba said. Yes, he was definitely tipsy, if not three sheets to the wind. "Lovely wine collection you have, Your Highness."

"I am escorting my aunt to her chambers," Sasuke said. "If you gentlemen would please excuse us."

"I suppose she's my aunt as well, in some degree," Kiba said. "Shall I take your other arm, Your Highness?"

Sakura shrank back against Sasuke and shook her head violently.

"The princess is quite particular about those with whom she associates," Sasuke said. His voice rang with authority, as if he were the Grand Duke himself.

"Of course," Kiba said hastily. "I meant no disrespect, Your Highness."

With huge relief, she heard the clatter of their heels as they continued down the corridor. And then, just as the sound died out, she heard Kiba say, "Woman looks like an awful goat in that getup. Someone should tell her we don't hold with nuns over here."

There was a murmur from Shino and a last word from Kiba. "All I'm saying is that she reminds me of the Grim Reaper. Could use her to frighten children at night."

The hand on her arm was shaking. "Stop laughing!" Sakura hissed.

"Can't," Sasuke said, his voice choked. "One shouldn't ever know one's relatives socially. It's so lowering to one's _amour propre_."

"What does that mean?" Sakura asked. "Are we almost there?"

"Just the stairs to the left," he said, taking a firmer grip on her elbow.

"_Amour proper_ is a man's sense of himself. The very idea of Kiba gracing my family tree takes the edge off my self-esteem."

"Good," Sakura said firmly. "It's likely the first time in his life that Kiba's been so useful."


	9. Chapter 9

Great stone steps curved up the inside wall of the tower. Sakura concentrated on not tripping over her floor-length veil, trying not to think about the foolish mistake she was making even climbing those steps.

Sasuke meant to seduce her. She knew it in her bones. So why, why was she taking step after step into his lair, so to speak? Was she to be the second of her father's daughters to disgrace his memory by finding herself unmarried and with child?

Not that her father's memory could be disgraced, she reminded herself. What disgracing there was to do, he had done himself. The very memory of her father and his philandering made her jaw set.

She would see Sasuke's little pot. And she would let him kiss her. But nothing further, and that much only because—it would be stupid to deny it to herself—she had the most terrible infatuation with the man.

Which probably happened to the prince at least every other Tuesday, and unless she wanted to simply to be grist for the mill of his arrogance, she would never let him know. So, as she threw off the veil, she put a nonchalant look on her face, as if she visited gentlemen's chambers on a regular basis.

As if those same gentlemen planned to kiss her into a wanton frenzy, and the only thing standing between them and her virtue was the strength of her will.

Unfortunately for Sasuke's plans, her will had gotten her through seven years of hard labor, humiliation, and grief. It would get her through this encounter unscathed.

"What a lovely room!" she cried, turning around. From the outside, the castle's two towers looked squat and round, like baker's hats. But the rooms inside were high-ceilinged and airy. "You've put in glass windows," she said appreciatively, going over to look.

"They were here when I arrived," Sasuke said, coming to stand at her shoulder.

"And what a view," she exclaimed. The castle stood at the top of a slight hill. The window at which she stood looked to the back of the castle, and manicured lawns stretched before her, edge at the far end with a stand of beeches.

"The maze looks so simple from above," she murmured, putting her fingers against the cool glass. "Yet Tsunade and I failed to make it through and were dumped out there, by the ostrich's cage."

"It is simple, but clever. I'll show you how to get to the center." He was leaning against the wall, looking at her, not at the maze. His eyes touched her like a caress, sending a prickle of warning down her spine. At the same time, warmth drifted to her more intimate parts.

He wasn't supposed to look at her like that. Rank seducers didn't look like that. They didn't say things that assumed time beyond the present, space outside this small room.

"I can stay only a moment or two," she said, much to herself as him.

"You'll like the view over here," he said, taking her hand and leading her across the room. The windows opposite looked down onto the dusty drive which she and Kiba had traveled a few short days ago. From above, the road drifted along by twists and turns into a violet distance where dark groves met the late afternoon sun.

"It makes you think of a fairy tale," she said, awed.

"The kind where a prince waits at your feet?" He said it lightly, but there was something there too.

"A princess is making her way up that road," Sakura pointed out. She turned away again and flitted rather blindly across the room until she was brought up short by an enormous carved bed. As if she'd been scorched, she swung about and walked in the opposite direction.

"Well," she said, "perhaps we should have that kiss now."

"Not yet," Sasuke said.

Sakura sat down on a beautiful little chair, upholstered in coral velvet, and took time arranging her skirts. Then she looked up. She was tired of the game of wits they were playing. It was too sophisticated for her, too reminiscent of the sort of complicated and refined conversations that Tsunade likely had with her beaux.

"You asked the right question earlier," she said. "Who am I?"

He sat down opposite her, not taking his eyes from hers.

"I am the elder daughter of my father, Sakura Haruno. He was the younger son of an earl, and had a snug estate, built from my mother's dowry. After my mother died, he left the entire estate to my stepmother, Masako, who bestowed it on her own daughter, Hinata."

"You are not illegitimate," he stated.

"No. My parents were married."

"And your father was an early."

"I have almost no dowry," she said. "Masako dismissed my governess and most of the household staff seven years ago, when my father died. I can bargain down the price of bread; I can mend a stocking; I cannot dance a polonaise."

He took her hand, turned it over. "I am sorry."  
"I should have left years ago, but that would have meant leaving my father's servants and his tenants at Masako's mercy. I stayed, though my stepmother dismissed the bailiff. She could not dismiss me, you see.

"Sasuke put her palm to his mouth and kissed it. "Go on."

"There's nothing else to tell," she said. "Now I have decided to leave, which probably meant that Masako will throw out most of our tenants, who are hardly scrabbling an existence as it is. The harvest was poor last year."

He nodded.

"The woman who is on her way to you…she is a princess."

With a gesture so graceful that it seemed natural to him, he slipped from the chair to his knees beside her. "True."

"Your brother Itachi is an ass to have thrown out his family, and you have a castle to support. I know what it's like to have responsibilities of that sort."

He closed his eyes for a moment, and the color of his eyelashes was like the color of regret. With a kind of piercing sorrow, she knew that she would never forget this prince.

It wasn't his dark head and fierce eyes, his unruly hair. It was the way he'd taken in his odd relatives, the zoo, his aunt's reader, even ostrich and the pickle-eating dog. It was the way he looked at her, and the way he laughed.

And she would never, ever forget the moment when a prince knelt at the side of her chair. When she was old and gray, and contemplating a life that she hoped would be richly satisfying, she would still remember this.

"If I were not a prince, would you have me?" He said it so low that she almost didn't hear. "To put it another way, if you had thousands of money, Sakura, if your estate was your own, would you buy me? Because that's what I needed, you know. I needed a woman who thought I was worth the price, and my brother found one in Russia, from the land of Tundra."

"Don't ask me that," she whispered. "My mother bought my father, and he never gave her a moment's happiness. I would _never_ buy a man."

He bent his head again. "The question is irrelevant; I apologize for asking it."

"Why did you ask it?"

"Do you have any idea what it's like to be a prince?" His head jerked back up, and his eyes were bitter, his mouth a hard line. "I cannot do as I wish, I cannot be what I wish, I cannot marry whom I wish."

She bit her lip.

"I am trained to put my honor and my house above all else. I think the pressure of it has driven my brother Itachi a little mad. He is an ass, as you say. But he's also crippled by the burden of having so many souls depending on him."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"I would like, just once, for a woman to see me as other than a person with a coronet. Simply as a man, no different than other men." The words wrenched from his chest.

She stopped him by putting her hands to his face. "Shhh." His lips felt cool and soft under hers, and for a moment she just paused there, in an innocent kiss, the kind that maidens give each other.

But his skin was prickly under her fingers, and his smell, his wild masculine scent, came to greet her, and her mouth opened instinctively. One stroke of her tongue and his arms came around her, strong as steel bands.

She toppled forward against his chest and he swept an arm under her legs and just held her there, against him, his mouth slow and fierce at the same time. He kissed so sweetly that she could have wept, and yet the warmth building in her legs at the touch of his tongue against hers made her feel nothing like crying.

She gave some sort of inarticulate murmur and wound her arms around his neck.

"Yes," he whispered fiercely. "This is the way it is with us, Sakura. Isn't it?"

She couldn't answer because she was waiting for him to kiss her again. "Please," she said, finally.

He laughed, a dark sound that felt like canary wine rushing through her veins. "You're mine for the moment, Sakura. Do you hear me?"

She raised her head and met his eyes. "Not a prince, but a man," she whispered, running her hands into his thick hair, so that his ribbon slipped over one shoulder and fell to the ground. "Sasuke, not Your Highness."

"And you are Sakura, my Sakura," he said to hers. His lips rubbed across hers as if they were young wooers, too simple to know the ways of the wicked. "I won't take your virginity, because that is yours to give and not mine to take. But Sakura, I warn you now that I intend to take everything else."

He looked down at her, and the expression in his eyes was pure sinful invitation. Sakura felt her lips curl without her conscious volition. "How do you know," she whispered, "that I won't do the same for you?"

Sasuke closed his eyes for a moment. "I have no doubt of that."

She leaned forward and licked, delicately, the strong column of his neck. A shudder went through his body and then he rose, still holding her. Sakura thought he would lay her on the bed and tear off her clothes.

But instead he put her gently back into the little velvet chair. "Stay," he commanded for all the world as if she were Caesar.

"Sasuke," she said, conscious of the husky timbre in her voice. "Won't you—won't you kiss me again?" And she stood up, because she was never any good at taking orders, as Masako could attest.

"You're so much taller than other women," he said. He out a finger on her nose and then drew it slowly down to her chin. "You have a beautiful nose."

"That's the compliment I was long longing for," she said wryly.

"This is my evening," he said, "and I have planned it very carefully."

Sakura put her hands on her hips. She felt saucy and sensuous and joyful all at once, as if desire and laughter were bubbling in her veins. "Oh, so you think you can merely order me about?"

"I have to come and go," he said, grinning back. "But do you know what I have in mind, Sakura?"

She shook her head. "Devilry, no doubt," she muttered.

"I'm going to drive you mad," he said, conversationally. "I'm going to kiss you and tease you and taste you…and leave. And then I'll come back and do the same thing again. And again."

Her mouth fell open. "You will?" Rather to her embarrassment, her voice didn't sound scandalized as much as curious.

He stepped away from her. "You said you wanted a rest. Would you like a bath or a nap first?"

Sakura looked around the great circular room. There was a curtained area to one side, but other than that, it was all one chamber. "You want me to take a nap? Here?" He must have no idea how the blood was pounding through her, warming parts of her body that she rarely thought about. "I'm not sure if I can rest at the moment."

"I understand," he said, as courteously as if he had offered her a cup of tea. "Perhaps later. Well, I'm afraid that I need to dress for the evening meal. Would you like to sit down? This won't take long."

Sakura blinked. Was he planning to undress in front of her? "What of your valet?"

"My valet has been commandeered to help Naruto this evening," he said with a grin. "So I have to dress myself." He reached up and began to slowly untie his cravat.

"Do you need assistance?" Sakura asked, mesmerized by the golden skin that appeared as he pulled the cravat free.

Looking at her, he shook his head and widened his stance. As if he had bade her, the movement made her eyes go to his legs. His breeches were tight, molded to his thighs. She jerked her gaze back up in embarrassment.

With an easy movement he pulled off his coat and tossed it on the bed. He was wearing a waistcoat that fitted close to his chest; a beautiful linen shirt billowed as he casually pulled it free of his breeches.

Sakura watched as if she were entranced, not saying a word. She almost felt as if she were at the circus, at a special private performance. There was an air of theater to Sasuke, and the dramatic, laughing flare in his eye showed that he was exploiting every second of it.

"I need help with my cuffs," he said. With an easy stride, he presented one cuff to her. She bent her head over the snowy linen, and pulled apart the small ruby buttons that held his cuffs together.

Without a word, he held out the other cuff. It was curiously erotic, the turn of his wrist, the way his shirt fell back on his arm. "How did you get this scar?" she said, touching a white mark on his forearm.

"Excavating in the Land of the Desert," he said. "Two years ago. I was bitten by a barga snake; the only remedy is to slash the bite as quick as you can and let it bleed free. Luckily I had a knife to hand."

"Awful!" Sakura said. "But it worked?"

"I was sick for a few days, but not much venom had reached my system." He stepped back and his sleeves fell to his elbows.

She was thinking about Sasuke's slashing his own arm, and not paying attention. "Sakura," he said. There was a kind of deep timbre to his voice that sent a little quake down her legs.

He was toying with the top button on his waistcoat. Her eyes were drawn to those clever fingers. He slipped the first button free and moved to the second. Sakura's mouth felt dry, watching as the buttons came free, one after another.

The linen of his shirt was translucent, giving just a glimpse of taut muscle underneath. Sasuke didn't say a word, just slowly slid from one button to the next.

As he undid the last button, he pulled off the waistcoat and threw it toward the bed. From the corner of her eye, Sakura saw the garment hit the coverlet and slide to the floor.

But her entire being was focused on those teasing hands. "It's rather hot in here," Sasuke said, his voice darkly amused.

Sakura made a shuddering attempt to maintain some sort of calm. "I'm afraid I forgot to bring my fan," she said.

"Here's one," he said reaching over to the large table to the right and handing her one. It was a lady's fan, exquisite, delicate, and obviously valuable. With a sudden thump of her heart, she realized that there had been other women in this room, that she probably wasn't the first to watch the prince undress himself.

But he was shaking his head. "Not what you're thinking, love. That's a seventeen-century noblewoman's fan, with an interesting painting. I picked it up in Suna."

"Of course," she said, opening it carefully. Sakura fluttered the fan just under her eyes. For some reason it gave her a kind of impudent courage to hold it before her mouth. "Weren't you about to take off your shirt?"

"Actually," he said, pulling free the back part of his shirt, "I generally take off my breeches first."

Sakura made a little sound.

"Boots first," he said. He turned, bent over, and pulled off his right boots. Sakura raised the fan to hover just below her eyes. The second boot was off, and he was facing her again.

"Breeches next….or socks?" The sensual curve of his mouth was enough to make her squirm with a thirsty sense of power.

"Since you're asking me," she said, fluttering the fan again. "Socks."

He bent over again. Watching the hard-muscle curve of his leg made her pulse beat fiercely.

Then he stood in front of her, legs apart, hands on his hips. "The breeches," he said, with primitive joy in his eyes.

She raised an eyebrow, as if nothing he could show her would cause particular interest. Of course she knew what the male anatomy looked like, if only from her embarrasses—but fascinated—study of Aretino's engravings.

But it was entirely different to watch Sasuke's hands swiftly unbuttoning his placket, under the shelter of his white shirt. He watched her intently.

"Shall I continue, lady?" he asked, as courteous as any primitive knights.

"Yes," she said, and cleared her throat, met his eyes boldly. "Do."

His hands paused at his hips, his eyes sizzling into hers. "I would rather you did this for me," he said.

She almost dropped her fan.

"Kneeling at my feet," he said, "coaxing my breeches to fall to the floor so that you could touch me…taste me…as you will."

Sakura swallowed.

The white shirt rose, covered his face, fluttered in the air, fell to the side.

Sakura's mouth fell open, but it was behind the fan, so he couldn't see it. Sasuke had to be three times the size of the men Aretino portrayed. "You are a bit larger than the pictures would suggest," she whispered.

"Italians," Sasuke said, standing with his hands on his hips and obviously enjoying her fascinated gaze. 'Wait until you see the statues in Florence. Some of those statues have all the endowment of a small boy."

"Well," Sakura said, forcing herself to look up, but that only gave her the chance to see what the rest of him looked like, the taut stomach, the muscled chest, and arrow of hair leading down to…to _there_.

"And now I must dress myself," Sasuke said, casually turning. "I asked my man to set out evening clothing. We're dancing tonight, did I mention that?"

Sakura bit her lip at the look of him from behind, the powerful swell of his shoulders narrowing to his waist. Even his arse was muscled and powerful, as unlike Kiba's plump round bottom as imaginable. "Yes," she said faintly.

He bent over to pick up a costume left for him on the side table. "I don't always bother with undergarments," he said chattily. "But when a man is wearing silk breeches, it stands to reason. Especially if there's the faintest possibility that his rod might make an appearance."

She nodded like a silly doll as he pulled on his undergarments, followed by socks embroidered with clocks in gold thread.

"Those are very nice," she managed to say, and cleared her throat again.

"I can't say I generally pay much attention to my clothes." Sasuke hauled a pair of silk breeches so tight that they showed every bulge. _Every_ bulge.

"You can't wear that," she gasped, before she thought.

"Don't you approve?" He grinned at her.

"I can see—anyone can see—" She gestured toward his front.

He gave himself a careless pat. "That's not going anywhere until I'm out of this room. I'll have to walk slowly down the stairs and think about something dreadfully boring."

A billowing shirt went over his head, but this one was considerably more elegant than the one had worn, with a gorgeous little frill at the neck.

"I must beg a favor, my lady," he said, as grave as any courtier.

"Yes?"

"My cuffs."

Her fingers slipped and trembled, pushing the rubies through the buttonholes on his shirtsleeves. If truth be told, she felt ravenous. And that was no proper emotion for a young lady to feel.

"There you are," she said. Her voice came out a husky rumble.

Sasuke moved to the glass and tied his cravat in a moment, his hands moving so swiftly, pleating, folding, and tying, that she could hardly follow.

Next was a silk waistcoat, a dark sea green with black embroidery. And finally he shrugged into a coat made of the same material, as tight as it was resplendent.

He pulled on a pair of buckled shoes.

He picked up his rapier and buckled it around his hips, under his coat. "Gloves." He snatched up a pair from the table.

Then he walked to just before her and put a leg forward, slid into a graceful court bow. "My lady, I fear I must leave you."

Sakura took a deep breath. The man in front of her was the epitome of elegance, as gorgeous a piece of manhood as ever graced a castle. She rose to her feet and held out her hand.

He raised it to his lips and she felt the touch of his tongue like a brand. Her fingers trembled and he rewarded her with a smile that would have made a saint swoon.

"I'll return as soon as I am able." He turned, the wide skirts of his coat flaring behind him.

Sakura stood in place, watching, feeling as if she'd been bewitched. He almost left, turned at the last minute. "I forgot," he said. "Something to keep my guest occupied during my absence."

He reached out, picked up a small velvet covered book, and tossed it to her. Reflexively she reached out and snatched it from the air.

"There's my Sakura," he said, a wry smile quirking his lips. "Do you know how many women would have squealed and allow the book to drop to the ground?"

The door closed quietly behind him.

Sakura stood for a moment longer, and then looked down at the book. Her fingers rubbed the velvet and she slowly opened the front cover, read the title page.

_The School of Venus_ by Aretino.

* * *

Sasuke stopped after the first turn of the steps descending from the tower and attempted to calm his pulse. His cock was threatening to rip through silk, and the only thing he could think about was the way Sakura's lips parted in a gasp when she saw him naked.

It hadn't frightened her. She was the kind of women whom men dreamed about, the sort who wouldn't cower under the coverlet waiting to do her marital duty, but a women with whom one could grow old, always discovering, never tiring, never less than enamored, bewitched, in lust.

He leaned his head back against the stone wall. His heart was thumping in his chest, tempting him to turn around, slam through that door, and cover her mouth with his.

But she wasn't his. She couldn't be his. The chill truth of it slowly filtered through his blood, like the icy rain.

She couldn't be his because he had this castle to support. And that meant he had to take his pretty arse downstairs and meet Tenari, the woman gilded in Russian rubles.

He needed to put on a smile and charm her at dinner. Dance with her once, and then again. And tomorrow, at the ball, he should open the dance with her on his arm.

They were to be married within the month following the betrothed ball…if all went well. If course it would go well.

There was no problem with his breeches anymore. He glanced down and smoothed a wrinkle I his cutaway, then walked down the steps.

But he still had this night, this last night.

He would go to dinner for a few courses, and then he would make some excuse to come back up, back to Sakura.

A small smile curled his lips.

He had plans.

The moment Naruto caught sight of him coming down the stairs he pulled the door to the drawing room shut behind him. "Where the hell have you been? The princess arrived a good hour ago and you should have been here to greet her," he said in a furious undertone. "Her uncle was visibly displeased."

"I'm sorry," Sasuke said.

"Prince Dimitri doesn't seem to be a hothead, but it was clear affront when you didn't appear, you idiot."

"I will apologize."

Naruto narrowed his eyes at him. "Aren't you going to ask what your future wife looks like?"

Sasuke considered that, and shook his head,

Naruto said something under his breath, and then: You will be joined by the Princess Song."

"Oh crap, Aunt Song is joining us?" Sasuke said with dismay.

"She's painted her eyes so heavily that she won't be able to see her dinner," Naruto said. "She's in there swilling brandy." Then he lowered his voice. "Just what have you done with Sakura?"

"She's in my chamber, reading. Only reading."

"I never imagined you'd do something like this," Naruto said, his voice tight with rage. "If you weren't my brother, I'd leave this house."

"I'm not doing anything," Sasuke said between clenched teeth. "For Pain's sake, Naruto, do you think I'd take her virginity? Do you think I'm that sort of man?"

"Keep your voice down. Anyone might descend that stair," he snapped. "If not, what the hell is she doing in your chamber?"

Sasuke raised his right hand blindly and pulled on a glove. "She's reading. I told you. Just reading."

Naruto stared at him. "Damn it."

"I did it," Sasuke said. "I met the woman, the only woman for me. I met her, and now…I'm going to meet my wife."

Naruto made a sudden movement. "No."

"That's the way life is, Naruto," Sasuke said, pulling on his other glove. "It's not always fair. You should be the first to know that. In case you're wondering, Sakura understands why I must marry Tenari. She just spent seven years working like a servant for her stepmother, as far as I can see, because she could not countenance leaving the servants and tenants on her father's estate to her stepmother's mercies."

"Then marry her. Bring her servants here and we'll add them to the crew."

"We can scarcely feed the lion," Sasuke said, straightening his blade. "Don't treat me like a lovelorn maiden, Naruto. I need to marry a woman with bags of money, and that's what I'm planning to do."

"We can manage," Naruto said. "Don't go through with it."

"How would I support all of them? Who would buy Song's brandy, the lion's beef, the candles, the coal we need to get through the winter?"

"The tenant farms—" Naruto began.

Sasuke shook his head. "I've spent hours going over the books. In time, the farms will be profitable. But they've been neglected. The cottages leak, the steeple in the village tower apparently collapsed last year. For all I know, the children are hungry. Not only that, but if I break the engagement, then I'd have to pay a forfeit. I need three dowries, not just one."

Naruto's comment was short but heartfelt.

"I'll forget about Sakura in time." He looked at Naruto in the eyes as he said it.

He would never forget her.

Naruto knew it too. "I've never said how much I appreciate the honor of being your brother," he said now.

Sasuke quirked a smile. "The feeling is mutual."

He had barely walked into the drawing room when the doors behind him opened again and Naruto's voice boomed out. "Her Royal Highness, the Princess Tenari. His Royal Highness, the Prince Dimitri."

Sasuke squared his shoulders and turned to face his future.

Tenari was poised in the doorway. She wore an exquisite gown of cream silk, embroidered all over with sprigs of flowers. Her eyes were large and dewy; her lips were a perfect rose pink. She was like a sweet drink of strawberries and cream her skin a perfect milk, her dark curls satiny.

Sasuke advanced and gave his best court bow. She curtsied with all the grace of a member of the court. He kissed her hand and she smiled at him, a bit shyly but very sweetly.

If the clouds had opened up and a booming voice had said, _This is your bride_, he wouldn't have been surprised.

Tenari was eminently beddable. Demure though she was, her low décolletage displayed her status as a desirable woman. She had no need for "bosom friend." She was everything Sakura was not: beddable, biddable, and rich.

He had vaguely expected to hate her, and he couldn't even do that. It took only a quick glance to see that she was very nice. She would never shout at him like a little shrew; it wasn't in her.

Her uncle Dimitri was smiling broadly and rocking back and forth on his heels. "I've been to this castle," he announced, in a thick accent. "I visited as a lad, when Lord Kenta had the castle. Told my brother that the castle was worth having to come to Konoha."

The damned castle, Sasuke thought, even as he bowed again and smiled.

"Expected I'd see you this afternoon," Dimitri said, giving Sasuke a shrewd glance.

"I apologize," Sasuke said. "I wasn't aware of your arrival."

"This little girl is the apple of her father's eye," DImitri announced.

A tiny sound escaped Tenari's lips; she was pink with embarrassment.

Sasuke bowed again and gave her a reassuring smile. Over her shoulder, Naruto was motioning that he should begin the procession in the dining room.

"What I'm getting to," Dimitri said, "is that her father didn't want her pushed into this marriage. If Tenari likes you, she stays. If she doesn't, we'll be leaving, dowry and all, and none of this talk of broken betrothals." His smiled showing his teeth.

He bowed yet again. Thank goodness, at that moment Naruto touched him on the shoulder, so he turned to Tenari and offered his arm.

"Your Highness, may I accompany you to the dining room?"

She smiled at him, and he noticed that though she was shy, she wasn't paralyzed by it. Someday she would be a composed and doubtless articulate woman. A perfect princess, in short.

Prince Dimitri fell in behind, with Sasuke's aunt, Princess Song, on his arm, and they led the way to the dining room, followed by a great train of jewels, velvets, and silks. The women were exquisite, like delectable pillowy sweets. The men were groomed and polished, like the sleek aristocrats they were.

The only person he wanted to see, the only person he wanted to eat with, was upstairs, wearing a simply gown, an orange wig, and a pair of wax breasts.

Prince Dimitri was quickly swept into an argument with Lady Dagimo which left Sasuke to make conversation with Tenari.

Except that his aunt Song was too old to care about rules dictating who spoke to whom, and so she barked a whole series of questions across the table at Tenari. Song was a bad-tempered termagant, by anyone's measure. His brother Itachi loathed her, and had thrown her out onto the boat with the same satisfaction with which he discarded the lion.

"Youngest of four, are you?" Song said, as the first course was being cleared away. She paused and reached under her wig to scratch her scalp. "There were eight of us. Nursery was a madhouse."

Tenari smiled and murmured something. She was obviously kindhearted, and if a little taken aback by his aunt's abrasive manners, wasn't letting if affect her courtesy.

"You're a pretty little thing," Song said, picking up a chicken leg and waving it as if she'd never heard of a fork. "What are you looking at?" she snapped at Sasuke.

Tenari was giggling.

"How many languages do you speak?" Song asked Tenari.

"Tenari's one of the smartest in our brood; up to five languages, aren't you, dumpling?"

"Uncle Dimitri!" Tenari cried.

"Not supposed to call her dumpling anymore," the prince said, grinning so widely that Sasuke could see every missing tooth. "Though she used to be the most adorable dumpling baby I'd ever seen. We love dumplings in Russia; they're more precious than rubles."

Tenari rolled her eyes.

"I never married, you know," Song barked.

She poke Sasuke and he jumped. His mind had drifted to Sakura once again. "This fellow's rascally father, my brother, never accepted an offer for my hand. I could have had anyone!" She scowled at the table, as if daring someone to disagree.

The truth was that Song had been betrothed to a sprig of a princeling in the Land of the Mist, but after she had arrived at his court and he had spent a day or two with her, he fled. She'd been sent home in disgrace, and the Grand Duke never again bothered to try to fix a marriage for her.

"Her Highness," Sasuke told Tenari, "was a famed beauty."

"I still am," Song said promptly. "A woman's beauty isn't just a matter of youth."

Tenari nodded obediently. "My grandmother always said that the greatest beauties in her day were so covered with powder and patches that one couldn't tell if there was a woman or a horse underneath."

There was a moment of silence. Song had four or five patches stuck onto her powdered face; one was coming undone and hanging from her cheekbone.

Tenari's mouth fell open and she turned pink as an autumn sunset. "Not that I meant to indicate anything of the sort about _you_, Your Highness," she gasped.

"Wasn't around when your grandmother was young," Song said with patent dishonesty, since she had to be seventy-five if she was a day. "I wouldn't know what she was talking about."

She turned her head and barked down the table at Dimitri.

"I do apologize," came a quiet voice at Sasuke's right elbow.

"My aunt took no offense," he said, smiling down at Tenari. She was bloody young.

"Sometimes the wrong thing just comes out of my mouth," she whispered.

"Prince!" his aunt said, interrupting this charming, if tedious, revelation. "Not to put too fine a point on it, my bladder is about to burst."

Sasuke rose to his feet. "If you will excuse me," he told the table, "the princess is experiencing a malady and I shall escort her to her chambers."

"It isn't a malady; it's just old age," Song said, waving her stick at Naruto. He came immediately, drew back her chair, and helped her to her feet.

"You're the best of them, " Song told him, as she always did. She pinched his cheek and then looked triumphantly around the table. "Born on the wrong side of the blanket, but he's just as much a prince as his brother here."

Lady Dagimo turned purple with indignation at this breach of decorum, but Prince Dimitri looked as if he was biting back a smile, which was a point in his favor.

As Naruto was helping Song straighten her skirts and get her stick in the right position, Sasuke bent down at Tenari's shoulder. "You see," he said quietly, "nothing you could say would ever embarrass me."

She looked up, dimples in evidence. She'd make a lovely princess; even close contact with Song wouldn't shake her composures. Plus, she knew languages.

She was perfect.

His aunt's chambers were on the bottom level of the tower. It took them a good twenty-five minutes to reach the door of her room, as she constantly paused to rub her ankle and complained about the flagstones, the damp, and the way he held his arm—too stiff for her liking, she pronounced.

The moment the door closed behind her, he turned about and bolted up the stone steps.

He'd been gone for almost two hours. At this rate, Sakura have had more than enough time to absorb each picture in Aretino's book.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Sasuke's chamber, Sakura had opened the salacious little volume, peered just long enough to ascertain that, yes, Aretino's men provided little comparison to Sasuke in the most pertinent area, and closed it again. She didn't have any wish to examine engravings of men and women intertwined on a bed. Or on a chair, or anywhere else.

She had the living, naked body of Sasuke in her mind, and nothing could interest her besides that.

She put the book down and walked over to a large table set up before the window. Sasuke had forgotten to show her the pot that once held a child's toys, but she guessed it was represented by a carefully arranged collection of shards. To the right of these was a piece of foolscap, covered with precise, beautifully written notes about the pot.

But that wasn't all the table held. There was another fan, besides the one he had tossed at her. It looked even older, and the paper was peeling from its delicate spines.

There was a small book entitled _The Strangest Adventure That Ever Happened, Either in Ages Past or Present_, a little pile of copper coins, roughly formed and obviously very old. A chart appeared to calculate the motions of seven planets, and a little vial was marked "Diacatholicon Aureum." Sakura picked it up curiously, pulled the cork, and sniffed, but couldn't tell what it was.

Finally, she picked up a much-thumbed journal called _Ionian Antiquities_, moved back to the velvet chair, and began to read. Twenty minutes later, after an exhaustive and probably learned discussion of the Antiques in Wave, she moved to the bed.

She told herself to wake the moment Sasuke's feet sounded on the marble steps, the very moment the door opened. She could leap off the bed and it wouldn't look in the least as if she was inviting him to join her.

When Sasuke opened the door to his room, Sakura was curled like a small kitten in the middle of his bed. Her wig was askew, and light strands of hair had fallen over her face. She'd taken her slippers off, but otherwise she was dressed as when he had left her.

She was beautiful. Her skin was honey; Tenari's was cream. Tenari's cheeks were dimpled and round; Sakura's cheekbones was just this side of gaunt. Tenari's lips were pillowy and soft; Sakura slept fiercely, her lower lip ruby red, as if she had bitten it in her sleep.

After one glance, his cock was straining his breeches again. Sasuke turned away in a silent groan.

He had the one night, only this one night.

Walking silently behind the screened area of his chamber, he opened a little wooden door that stood about waist-high, reached in, and rang a bell that sounded in the kitchens.

A moment later he heard the trundling, bumping sound that indicated the lift was on its way up. He waited until it was at the top of its journey, then reached in and grabbed the pail of boiling water and dumped it into his bathtub, released the rope, and sent the bucket back down to the kitchens again.

He almost splashed himself with the next bucket and realized that he couldn't get his coat wet, as he had to return downstairs, if not for dinner, then for the dancing.

Neatly and quickly, with the sort of fastidiousness that he gave to every task, he stripped off his coat, waistcoat, shirt, and breeches, draping his clothes over a chair. He left on his undergarments; it was Sakura's turn to be naked.

A few moments later he looked at the bathing room with satisfaction. He had lit candles on every surface, and placed a glass of wine within tempting reach of the bath.

A length of toweling on his arm, he returned to the bed and sat gently next to Sakura. Her face had smoothed out now, and her lips were curled in a little smile, as if whatever had worried her earlier had stolen away, leaving her in a happy dream.

He pulled a pin from her hair. She didn't stir. He pulled another, and another, until he had all the hairpins he could see. Then he tried a gentle pull on her wig, but nothing happened.

Her eyelashes fluttered and he thought she was waking up, but she merely rolled over so her shoulder and back were presented to him.

In fact, Sakura was carefully regulating her breathing and wondering desperately what to do. She had seen with a flicker of an eyelash that there was a naked chest bending over her.

Aching desire made her want to open her eyes and wrap her arms around his neck. She wanted to pull that beautiful body over hers and let her fingers run over his chest and back. It was an all-consuming fever that pounded in her chest and sent licks of fire down her legs.

But the cautious part of her brain had her frozen in place, her eyes shut, trying to persuade Sasuke that she was still sleeping. She was afraid.

He was too tender, in the way he was carefully pulling her hairpins, as if frightened to wake her.

He was too beautiful, sitting beside her, nearly naked in the golden light of candles.

He was too much, too everything. With a pang she knew exactly what was frightening her: It was the terror that there would be no satisfying life without this prince. That he was everything to her, and that without him she might as well go back to Masako and spend her life wretchedly protecting the tenants.

"Sakura," he murmured, and she realized that his lips were against her throat, pulling back her hair, drifting over her ear. "It's time for your bath. I have a tub full of steaming water waiting for you."

"Ah…hello," she said foolishly. But she didn't turn over. He had pulled off her wig, and one hand was stroking through her hair. It felt so tender that she let herself drift, eyes closed, feeling only the sensual stroke of his fingers.

Then she realized what was happening and tried to stop him—but it was too late. His nimble fingers had unfastened all the buttons down the back of her gown. She sat up, clutching her bodice.

"Sasuke," she said warningly, narrowing her eyes at him.

"You promised I could kiss you anywhere," he said, hooking a finger into her bodice and giving a gentle tug.

"I don't remember saying that! And why aren't you wearing any clothes?"

"I am wearing my undergarments," he said. And then added wryly, "Except for the part of me that isn't."

She looked down, just long enough to see that, in fact, a part of him was jutting straight out the top of his waistband.

"You shouldn't," she protested, but at that moment he bent down and pressed his mouth to hers. Even so, she kept talking, but the words fell away as his tongue traced the soft line of her lips.

"I could kiss your mouth all night," he whispered.

Sakura told herself that kisses were what she had promised. True, she hadn't thought that he would be naked…But at least he was wearing undergarments. Even if they didn't seem to cover that part of him.

A small part of her will gave way, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He responded instantly, taking her open mouth and pulling her against his bare chest. Sakura melted, a sensation so overwhelming that she began trembling all over. He kissed her until wildfire danced in her veins, until desire slid like brandy through her limbs.

"Sasuke, I…" she whispered.

"Hush, sweet Sakura," he said, pulling back. "I'm going to take your gown off now." Without waiting for an answer, he slowly drew forward the gown, pulling it over the tops of her breasts, over her corset with the wax inserts, down to her waist.

"My arms," she said, with a gasp. "I can't move."

"_My_ kiss," he said, and his voice made the wildfire burn higher. It was hoarse, as if he was holding on to his control as best he could. He didn't free her arms.

She watched as his hands deftly unlaced her corset and then pulled it wide. Her bosom friends were tossed to the ground; her breasts, pushed high and rigid by the corset, fell into his hands like ripe apples.

He froze for a moment, and then pulled her chemise tight across her bosom. It was silk, as frail as gossamer.

"Oh Gosh," he said, sounding as if the word was ripped from his lungs. "I've never seen anything more beautiful. Never."

Sakura's lips parted to say something, but no words came out because Sasuke had rubbed a slow thumb across her nipple. The feeling smoldering in her legs burst into flame. A choked cry came from her lips.

"I have to taste you." With one swift movement, he put his hands to her chemise and wrenched. The silk parted as sweetly as a sliced peach falls in two.

"Sasuke!" she cried, but she could tell he didn't even hear her. He was looking intently at her breasts, his eyes blazing.

In his hands, her breasts didn't look small. They didn't look as if they needed bosom friends to plump them up. They looked lush and round, exactly the right shape.

Then he bent his dark head and she felt the touch of his lips on her breast. She'd seen it in Aretino's pictures—men suckling women as if they were babes in arms. She wrinkled her nose and turned the page, convinced that the artist was depicting some sort of ludicrous perversion.

But at the touch of Sasuke's mouth she felt a surge of pleasure that was unlike anything she'd felt in her life. She couldn't breathe, and a cry came from her throat. Sasuke sucked harder and a thumb rubbed across her other nipple; Sakura's mind went completely blank and her body arched up, a moan breaking from her lips.

"I knew it," he whispered roughly. He raised his head just long enough for her to see the mad exultation in his eyes. "I—" But his words were lost as he lavished attention on her neglected breast. And for her part, Sakura had no ability to shape words, no power to do anything other than writhe under him, gasping.

When he raised his head again her body was throbbing, the blood singing through her legs. "Sasuke," she whispered.

He returned to her mouth, kissing her punishingly, making her arch against him, lost in a firestorm of sensation and desire.

When she broke away, she knew perfectly well that her will was sapped, the whole practical side of her dismissed, as if it didn't exist. "Please let me move," she begged huskily, her eyes wandering over his chest…the chest she hadn't been able to touch because her arms were still trapped by her gown.

He moved back without a word, but she saw the way he was struggling to draw in air.

With a swift movement Sakura swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. She shrugged her arms from the sleeves of her dress, but held it to her waist, letting his hot eyes appreciate her.

"What's fit for the goose is fit for the gander," she told him, a smile stealing over her lips.

His eyes widened and she slowly, slowly let the gown drop to the floor. Sasuke had ripped her chemise to the waist, so she pulled it off her shoulders, but didn't let it fall, holding her breasts, pulling it slowly past her nipples, shuddering at the feeling of silk rubbing parts made tender by his mouth.

Sasuke made a movement, as if he were about to fling himself off the bed, but she stopped him with one glance.

"You undressed yourself," she said, letting one hand slide from her collarbone, down over the curve of her right breast, down to the frail silk of her chemise as it clung to her hips.

"Please," he said hoarsely.

Kicking her gown away from her feet, she turned her back on him and saucily walked over to the table. "You look a little hot, Your Highness. Perhaps the fan will help."

Picking up the fan he had handed her a few hours ago, she sauntered back toward the bed. "I always use it when I'm overheated," she crooned, flipping it open and fanning her face. Then a bit lower, her breast. A bit lower…Her chemise rippled in the breeze.

"I don't know why it is," she said, "but I seem to be overheated at the moment."

"Sakura," Sasuke said, his voice was a groan. "You're no virgin. Tell me you're not a virgin."

Her smile slipped, and then the fan fell to the floor.

Sasuke lunged off the bed as if he were possessed, jerking her into his arms. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

Sakura tried to say something but the feeling of his body against hers had stolen her logic again, sent her into a storm of sensation and desire. His body was hard and demanding against her, delivering an unmistakable male demand that made her knees go weak.

"You're a virgin; I know you're a virgin and I respect that," Sasuke was saying into her hair. "I would never imply otherwise, love. It was just a cry of a man who was wishing that fate was different."

She curled against his chest, feeling his heart thumping wildly. "You're wishing that I was the hussy I feel like," she whispered.

Excitement curled tighter in her stomach. She raised her head to meet his eyes. "Tonight you're just a man, remember?"

"I don't know if I'll survive this night," he said raggedly.

A smile curved her lips and she broke free of his arms. "I hadn't finished undressing. Are you planning to expire before that happens?"

"No," he choked.

Somehow her poor chemise had clung to her hips. With a little wiggle, Sakura sent it sliding down her legs, over the strawberry-colored hair that covered her most private area.

Then she raised her arms and pulled the last pins from her hair. It fell below her shoulders, ringlets and curls, thick and silky. She ran her fingers through it, shaking her locks free, enjoying the way her breasts rose in the air.

"You are so beautiful," Sasuke growled, his voice little more than a thread of sound.

"I believe it's time for a bath," she said, turning her back on him. Then she paused and looked over her shoulder. "You _did_ say that there was a bath prepared for me?"

He didn't seem to be able to speak, but he leaped ahead of her and pulled away the velvet curtain that concealed his bathing area.

"How lovely!" Sakura cried, seeing the huge iron tub full of gently steaming water, candles throwing golden specks of light over the velvet of the curtains, over the water, over her body.

She stepped forward and put in a toe, with a sigh of pure pleasure, relaxed in the curve of the tub, sweeping her hair behind her so that it hung over the edge.

The only sound in the room was the gentle plash of water and the harsh sound of Sasuke's breathing. She couldn't stop smiling. If she, Sakura Haruno, decided to be a wanton, she would be the best wanton this castle had ever seen.

"Soap," she said, holding out her hand.

Sasuke put the ball in her hand without a word.

"Mmmm," she said, sniffing it. "Apple blossom?"

"Orange blossom," he said. His voice was dark and sinful.

She sat up just enough so that she could soap her left arm. "Shouldn't you be getting dressed so that you can go back downstairs?" she asked. "I'm afraid everyone will be wondering where you are."

His eyes were fixed on her hands as she soaped her right arm.

"Sasuke?" she inquired innocently, her hands straying to her breasts. "I'm sure you said that you would come and go. That was your plan, wasn't it?"

His gaze was so hungry, so hot, that she was surprised the water didn't evaporate. He cleared his throat. "Why don't you finished washing, and then I'll go. Unless you would like some assistance?"

She raised a leg from the bath and slowly, slowly washed her toes, letting her fingers stray up her leg.

"I suppose," she said, stealing a glance at him under her lashes, "someone might help me with this other leg."

Somehow it felt entirely different when strong male hands stroked soap over her leg.

And Sasuke's interpretation of _leg_ was not exactly in line with her own. Sakura was no sooner lying back in the bath, enjoying the tingling sensation of his strong fingers stroking her thigh, than they crept higher…and then higher still.

She sat up. "Sasuke!"

"Hush, love," he said. And with that, his fingers slipped into a caress. This was no kiss…she should stop him.

Instead her legs fell farther apart in a silent plea that he continue. Whatever he was doing was fatal to her self-control. Sakura's common sense, her willpower, all the parts that made her fierce and strong, deserted her. All that was left was a body that rejoiced in his touch, arched toward him.

His other hand wandered to her breast and she actually threw her head back and cried aloud. His hands were like fire, teasing, tormenting, stroking her…

"I—" she gasped.

A finger dipped into her most private place for one throbbing instant and she shattered, crying out, her arms flying around his neck, her body shaking as stoke after stroke of fire shot through her body.

Sakura came to herself slowly, finding that her wet arms were locked around Sasuke's neck, that her eyes were squeezed shut. His fingers eased from her plump folds, giving them a little farewell pat that sent a final shudder through her body.

"Good Grief, Sakura," he said in a kind of groan.

She didn't move. She felt sweaty—and she was in a bath. Noises had come from her mouth that she hadn't imagined any lady could ever make. Pleasure was replaced by a wave of embarrassment do violent that she would have preferred to die rather than open her eyes.

Plus—though it was a minor consideration—her legs were still throbbing.

"Sakura?" he asked, his voice just as sinful as before. "Are you ever going to open your eyes?"

She shook her head, keeping her face tight to his skin. It smelled warm and male and indescribably enticing.

A hand slid down her back, following the curve of her spine under the water, slid around the curve of her hip. "I want to kiss you there," he said.

Her body jerked in shock. "No," she said, the word muffled by his skin.

"I must go downstairs and begin the dancing, but Sakura…"

He gently pulled her arms from around his neck and stood up. Perforce, she opened her eyes. He was all taut muscle, even the part that stood fiercely above the band of his undergarments.

"Won't that be uncomfortable?" she asked, realizing instantly that her effort to make casual conversation was a failure. There was something aching in her voice, something that begged him to stay.

He couldn't stay.

He was rubbing toweling over his chest and staring at her as if he couldn't look away. "Yes," he said flatly. "I'm going to have to wait on those stairs for a good ten minutes."

Looking at his face, Sakura suddenly realized that there was no reason for her shock embarrassment. What happened between them, no matter how intimate, was not shameful.

So she pointedly let her legs fall apart, just as they wished to, and ran her hand down the inside of her thigh.

"What if I want that kiss…_now_?" she whispered.

Her flesh throbbed under her light touch, at the very idea of it.

"You're killing me," he said hoarsely. "I have to go, Sakura. You know that."

She gave him a cunning smile. "It's all right. As long as you remember that I'm here, waiting." She let her head fall backwards, and her breasts rose above the eater.

He made a choked noise and disappeared through the velvet drapes. Sakura heard the door close behind him.

A small smile curled her lips. She had learned something rather wonderful, it seemed to her.

Sasuke would go downstairs and do whatever it was he had to do…and then he would return.

* * *

(A/N): Oh my, things sure are getting steaming hot up in here between these two couples. Stay tune for the next chapter to see what will happen next. :)


	10. AN

Hello All. Just wanted to let you know that I will not be continuing this story.

If you all still want to know what happened at the end, please go and read the story that I based this off on.

It's called **A Kiss at Midnight** by Eloisa James. All story credit and lines goes to her and her wonderful tale of a twisted Cinderella view.


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